


What No One Knew

by shortstakk79



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:51:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortstakk79/pseuds/shortstakk79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story I had started working on a while back and have yet to finish. Wanted to see what response I will get with a wider audience. The story starts out with my OC (Danielle) running to David Rossi for help, but in the long run it looks as though she will wind up with Derek Morgan.  I give all of my stories the M rating to be safe rather than sorry. Mostly it's for possible foul language and maybe a little sexual activity, but I don't get crazy graphic about it.  Love to all. PS----- Any (*) that you see to the side of any portion of the work (as in approximately half-way down on this chapter) will be indicating flashback sequences and the like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What No One Knew

**Author's Note:**

> Some statistics on Domestic Violence:  
> -Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten.  
> -Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Most often, the abuser is a member of her own family.  
> -Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women—more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.  
> -Studies suggest that up to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.  
> -Everyday in the US, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends.  
> -Ninety-two percent of women surveyed listed reducing domestic violence and sexual assault as their top concern.  
> -Based on reports from 10 countries, between 55 percent and 95 percent of women who had been physically abused by their partners had never contacted non-governmental organizations, shelters, or the police for help.

This was the fourth house she had run to. She hoped she’d finally found a neighbor that was home. Somehow she doubted it; the man who lived here stayed gone a lot…she thought perhaps because of his job, but she wasn’t really sure. She hadn’t had the chance to really get to know any of her neighbors since moving here nearly three years ago. She knew how pathetic that sounded, but the truth of the matter was she wasn’t even allowed to go to the end of the driveway to check the mail without him watching from a window; so the idea of actually speaking to any neighbors was not something that she was ever able to conceive.

She had lost her footing while running a couple times; she supposed that happened when you could only see out of one eye. The thought only crossed her mind because her ankle was beginning to swell. 

‘Wonderful. I must have twisted it good the last time.’ 

It didn’t help that she kept looking back over her shoulder to see if he was coming after her or not. As she made it just to the end of the driveway of this older gentleman’s house, she saw his truck coming around the corner from the side street in the upscale subdivision they lived at. She hobbled desperately onto the man’s front porch, banging on the door like her life depended on it. But then again it did. 

‘Oh God! Please be home! Please, please, please be home.’

She beat on that door until her fists hurt, looking back over her shoulder. The only reason she had even thought to come here was that the last time that her husband had bothered to take her out, they had passed by this house and she saw the large SUV with government tags on the back end. That had been a hot day, and the gentleman who lived here had been out in his yard, his garage door was open while he did some light weeding. She filed her knew found knowledge away for later. She never knew when that might come in handy. She had seen the man working in his yard. He was older, although he didn't seem to have a lot of grey in his hair yet. He was taller than her, but then that didn't shock her. She was petite, 5’3 or 5’4; most people were taller than her (if you didn't count the Olsen twins). His face seemed distinguished, yet kind, with a goatee.

***He stood from his work and saw the car passing and the young couple in it, as they passed he threw up his hand to wave at them. As usual, the young woman turned her head quickly, the man that was driving waved back stiffly. David Rossi wondered about those two odd birds. They had lived in town for a while now, and he had yet to meet them. David was a social butterfly in most cases and knew almost all of his neighbors that lived close by. But there weren’t many people that seemed to know this young couple; and if they did know something, they never told. He just knew they never managed to make to the neighborhood barbecues that were held a few times a year during the summer. If either one of them showed up it was the man. He was sort of stand-offish. And when he was asked where his wife was he always said she wasn’t feeling well or that she wasn’t comfortable around strangers.***

Today, Rossi was in his study working on some notes for a new book he was writing. He had been going along at a decent pace until that infernal knocking at his door started. At first he tried to ignore it. He usually didn’t like to be bothered when he was home. He liked the peace and quiet; and after some of the cases they had worked lately, who could blame him. 

The knocking wouldn’t go away though; if anything it got louder and more urgent. And then he heard the woman’s voice screaming for someone to help her. 

Rossi grabbed his side-arm from his desk drawer, clipping it to his belt, and stood immediately and ran to his front door, ripping it open. 

As soon as he got the door open more than a couple of inches, a small woman burst through it sobbing collapsing into his arms crying out for him to help her. 

“He’s gonna kill me! Please, don’t let him come for me!” 

Rossi had barely gotten a decent look at her face but could see that one eye had a blackish/purple bruise and was swollen shut and that there were several other bruises all over her face….some of her finger nails were broken and bleeding from where she must have been fighting the devil himself. 

As soon as he was able to take in these few details he reached up and slammed his door shut, locking it. 

“Come on, we can go into the living room. He won’t be able to see you from there.” 

The young woman tried to stand up and walk, but her ankle gave way, and she wasn’t able to stand. Not even breaking stride, Rossi swung her up into his arms and carried her into his living room, laying her on his sofa, and draping a blanket over her to give her a little security. 

“I’ll be right back, I’m going to go look and see where he is.”

She shot up into a sitting position, full of panic, wincing because her side hurt so badly. 

“Don’t let him get me! Please!” she reached out a shaky hand and grabbed his arm. Her hand was so tiny. 

“He won’t make it past me, I promise you that. I’m just going to the window to look out. I won’t leave.”

She nodded her understanding. 

“Just lay here and rest. As soon as I am able to figure out what is going on, I will call an ambulance to come and get you. He drives the red Dodge Ram right?”

The woman only shook her head ‘Yes’.

Rossi did as he promised. He went to his front door, looking out of the transom windows that were on the sides to see if he could spot the huge truck rolling down the street. He knew the man would not be able to see directly into the house through the windows, because there were sheers that covered them to help obstruct the view, so Rossi’s identity would be covered fairly well, but he stayed back from the window just a bit to be on the safe side. 

He took out his cell phone and pretended to be making a call and walking from room to room while he talked just in case the man in the truck happened to stop out in front of the house to stare.  
On one of his turn-arounds Rossi saw the truck alright. Walking back into his study and through another door that lead back into the living room that was on the back of the house, where he had placed the woman, he came to sit down in one of his favorite chairs before he acted like he was hanging up the phone and picking up the TV remote. The young woman was still lying on the sofa, terrified to move. 

“He’s just out front. We will sit here for a few minutes and give him time to go away. I can get you something to drink while we wait.”

“He won’t leave.”

“He will have to leave. I’m a federal agent, if he continues to sit in front of my house I can have him arrested for trespassing. Would you like anything to drink?”

“Yes, please.”

“What would you prefer?”

“Just some water will be fine.” 

Rossi got up and went into the kitchen. As he got a drink for himself and one for the young lady, he also made two ice packs; one for her eye and one for her ankle.  
After carrying everything into the living room, he sat the tray on the coffee table and sat on the foot stool that was in front of his chair, scooting it closer to the end of the sofa near her feet.

“Which ankle is the one that hurts?”

She drew up a little scooting away from him.

“I’ll be alright. You don’t need to….”

“I know you’ll be fine. And I do need to. Let me see, which ankle?”

“The left one,’ she said quietly as she tried to slip the shoe off, her face scrunching when it hurt to do so.

“Lie back, I can take care of this.” Rossi saw that the ankle was swelling quite nicely.

“I think you’ve sprained it rather well.” 

“Yeah, I guess so.” The woman took a small sip of the ice water she had been offered. 

Rossi looked up to see if he could still see out of the window to the street. That damned truck was still out there. He took out his cell phone again, calling the local police department. He let them know he was a federal agent and that there was a strange vehicle that was sitting out front of his private residence and had been for the better part of 15 minutes without moving. He mentioned to them that he was pretty sure that it was a man who had beaten his wife, and that the young woman was currently hiding in his home, and that it would be wise for them to approach in unmarked vehicles without lights and sirens.  
After the adrenaline had begun to drain from her body, the young woman started to get drowsy. Rossi was beginning to notice a gash at her forehead. He knew she might have a concussion, and he would need to keep her awake until he could figure out how to get her to the hospital. 

“So, little missy, you’ve never mentioned your name.”

The one eye that she could see out of had become droopy with fatigue, but she slowly opened it a little bit. 

“Danielle. Danielle Blanchard.” Her eye started closing again as she became more and more tired.

“Oh no, you have to stay awake. We have to take you to the hospital.”

“Hmmmm.”

She began to doze off on him and he began to call Hotch to let him know what was going on as he tried everything he knew to do to keep her awake.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Stay tuned~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


	2. What No One Knew: Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danielle gets taken to the hospital and winds up staying with Derek after her discharge.

The cops had come out to Rossi’s house; one of the officers had called when they were close, as a courtesy to Rossi’s status as a federal agent. He was still on the phone with Hotch and had told him to hold for a moment while he went to look out of the front window.

Rossi took the chance going over to the window to look out and see what would happen. He saw the cops stop the car; one of them got out and walked over to the truck, speaking with the man in the truck. Rossi wouldn’t swear on the bible, but they seemed friendly with each other, friendly enough that Rossi became worried when the officer gave the man a wave and got back in the car alongside of his partner. Rossi saw the truck pull away and leave; it looked as though the man might have gone back in the direction of his own home.

‘Rossi, what’s going on….Hell-o.’

“I’m here. Meet me at Mercy General.”

‘Rossi, you need to tell me what’s going on.’

“Long story short…One of my neighbors has been beaten. I’m going to take her to the hospital so they can check her out. I am sure her husband did it; I saw him sitting just out front of my house in his truck for quite some time. I would call for an ambulance to take her, but I don’t want him causing problems.”

‘I can call ahead to the hospital and let them know you’re coming. Derek can meet you at the entrance to your neighborhood and give you an escort if you think you will need it.’

“It probably wouldn’t hurt. I wouldn’t care, except I don’t know what this man’s frame of mind is, so having Derek around might be a good idea.”

‘Alright, I’m sending him out now. I can be up there with the rest of the team as soon as possible.’

“Thanks. I have to go. She’s waking up a little bit. She’ll be upset if she can’t find me.”

‘Well go see to her. Can you sneak her out of the house through the garage? At least this guy wouldn’t see you put her in the car. It would give you a little head start on him.’

“That’s actually what I was planning to do. I’ll see you at the hospital a little later. I really have to go.”

With that Rossi abruptly ended the call. 

“Mr….”

“You get to call me Dave.”

“M’k.”

“I’m going to try to get you to the hospital; first you need to take a couple of aspirin, it might help with some of the aches you have, at least long enough to give us time for the doctor to look you over.”

“I’m alright, I don’t need anything.”

“Well, humor me and take two, please.”

The young woman nodded. She couldn’t really say no; this man had been so nice to her, she would do pretty much anything he asked her too at that point. 

After she downed the aspirin and a little water, Dave lifted her up in his arms again and began to carry her over to a door that led to his garage; it was off of a sort of mud room that was, itself, off of the kitchen…  
since the garage door was closed, he could easily sneak her into the back seat without anyone seeing what he was up to. 

“I am going to need you to lay down if that is possible and stay down until I tell you differently, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep the blanket close.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dave…”

“…Dave.”

With that he shut the back door to his SUV. Dave hopped up in the driver’s seat, pushed the button on his garage door opener, and then began backing out. Once he was safely out of the garage, but still in his drive   
way, he set his home security alarm remotely; just like Garcia had taught him months ago. After that was all done, he made his way out onto the street in his subdivision, and towards the entrance where Derek was waiting; luckily Dave’s neighborhood was only about a 10 minute drive from the office. 

Pulling alongside Derek at the entrance, Dave rolled his window down and made sure that Derek knew where they were going. 

“Yeah, Hotch said Mercy General. Do you want me in front or behind?”

“Behind; I can see things coming at me pretty well. But it will be difficult to keep my eyes on the road ahead and behind while still worrying about how she is doing.”

“She? D-a-v-e?”

“I can explain later, just….”

“Alright. Lead on old man.”

Dave pulled out onto the highway, Derek following a safe distance behind him. Once they were on the road, Dave’s cell started to ring.

“Yes, Morgan?”

“What sort of vehicle am I supposed to be on the look-out for?”

“Oh, yeah….well I know for sure that he drives a red Dodge Ram, if one of those follows us for more than a few turns it’s likely him. Other than that I don’t know what he might be in.”

“I just wanted to make sure; I forgot to bring that up at the company meeting.” 

“Smart ass.” 

“Bye Rossi.”

Dave hung up, shaking his head and with a bit of a chuckle. 

From the back seat he heard a voice, ‘Who was that?”

“It’s one of the people I work with…”

“Another Federal Agent?”  
“Yes. We work for the FBI. Do you know what Behavioral Analysts do?”

“Yes, actually. You are called in to bad crimes to figure out the kind of person or people did the crime and help the local cops stop the bad guy.”

“Actually, that’s pretty much it, yes. How long have you and your husband lived here in town…in the neighborhood?”

“Hmmm. About three years I think.”

“I don’t see you around a lot.”

“I know. “

“Where are you from originally? You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

“Yeah, well….How many times have you ever heard someone how sexy Yankees sound when they talk?”

“Touché. Now, really, where are you from?”

“North Carolina.”

“Which part?”

“The northeastern corner of the state.”

Dave made a sound, a little tsk sort of sound that led her to believe he really didn’t care for her evasiveness. 

“….I-I m-mean it’s a tiny town. Chances are if someone like you has ever heard of it or been through it then it was probably an accident.” 

She sounded worried. 

“You don’t have to be worried about me. I’m not mad at you about anything; I just thought we should try to get to know each other a little bit, considering our circumstances.”

Danielle replied with a nearly inaudible, soft, ‘Okay’. 

Dave’s phone started ringing again. 

“Mercy General Morgan.”

“No, Dave. Behind me, is this the truck?”

Dave looked up into his rearview mirror, ‘Yes.”

“I got this, you get her to the hospital, I will catch up.”

“Be careful this time how ‘bout it.”

“Yes dad.”

After hanging up Rossi chuckled yet again, shaking his head, ‘That boy….”

“What’s going on?”

“It seems that your husband is following us. My friend that I spoke to…he was running interference for us so I can get you to the hospital in one piece…he called to let me know that your husband is back there.”

“Oh no!”

“Don’t worry. Derek will stop him in his tracks.”

“But he gets so…..”

“Trust me; he won’t tangle with Derek but the one time.”

Only a few minutes more and they were pulling up to the hospital; Dave pulled right straight into the entrance of the emergency department. As he hopped out of the driver’s seat, he tossed his keys to one of the nurses that came out to meet him, and then turned to the back of the vehicle, opening that door and collecting Danielle.

“Sir you can’t just park….” The nurse began to instruct Dave. 

Dave merely flashed his FBI badge and pulled Danielle out of the back seat.

The nurse saw the condition that the young woman was in, ‘She has a possible concussion and has been in and out of consciousness off and on since I found her. I don’t have time to park it somewhere else.”

“Yes sir, I’ll take care of it.”

Dave walked quickly into the emergency room and went straight to the intake desk.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
On the way to the hospital, Dave had intentionally pulled into one of the inside lanes, with Derek right behind him; they knew the red truck would follow the pattern. Once this was done, Dave had driven a few car lengths ahead and then swerved back into the lane he needed to be in so he could make the turn off to the hospital. Derek in the meantime had slowed up ever so slightly causing the man in the red truck to be blocked in by traffic. Once that was done, all Derek had to do was be patient and wait for an opening and he would get over quickly. Rush hour traffic in this area…usually it pissed Derek off beyond all belief; but just for today, it had its useful attributes.

As it turned out, Derek couldn’t take the exit he wanted to get to the hospital. That was fine by him; he went a few exits up and made the turn there…it only meant he had to double back a bit, but to have that   
asshole tangled up in some DC grid-lock was worth it. 

By the time that Derek made it to the hospital, Hotch and the rest of the team had made it there as well. They tracked down Rossi in a waiting room; he was standing at one of the windows to the waiting room, allowing him to see down the hall a bit. He was trying to see when the doctors came and went to try to keep up with what was going on with this girl. Everyone sat around waiting with him, asking him questions about what was going on, listening carefully when he told them what he knew thus far.

The doctor that had been examining Danielle finally stepped out, Rossi stood up quickly when the doctor called her name.

“Are you family?”

“Yeah, she’s my niece.” Rossi replied quickly enough; Hotch arched a brow at him, not saying a word.

“I’m Dr. Sherwood. It seems as though Danielle has a mild concussion…it’s nothing too serious. Most of her injuries are superficial….bruises, things like that; although, she does have two cracked ribs. She did   
sprain that left ankle like a pro. She’ll have to stay off of it for a while. I noticed in her x-rays that there are several older injuries, quite a few actually. It leads me to believe that she has been beaten over years. And she got extra lucky this time….”

“What do you mean doc?” Rossi was growing angrier and more concerned as the man kept speaking.

“She’s also pregnant. She can’t be that far along, she doesn’t seem to be showing or at least not that much. But to be on the safe side I will go ahead and schedule an ultra-sound to be sure of what is going on with   
the baby.”

“Dr. Sherwood, we would like to be able to take her a change of clothes.”

“And who might you people be?”

“FBI agents, doctor.” Rossi answered for Hotch. 

“Well, give us a moment to finish getting her ankle and ribs wrapped, and just don’t get her worked up and it should be fine. As soon as the ultra-sound is scheduled and performed I will fill out the paperwork to   
have her released. She shouldn’t be allowed to go back home to that environment however.”

“Of course not doctor. We understand.”

With that the doctor had left the waiting room saying that he would have a nurse come notify them when they were able to go back and see the girl. 

The nurse finally came to get them to lead them to the exam room that Danielle was in. She was sitting on the exam table in a pale green hospital gown, her feet dangling over the edge of it. She was short enough   
that her feet didn’t touch the step that they pull out to help shorter people boost themselves up onto the table; even when she extended the toes on the foot that wasn’t swollen, they didn’t even come close to   
touching the step. She was swinging her ‘good’ foot a little allowing her heel to gently hit the table behind it. The one nurse in the room with her was dabbing at the gash on her forehead, the one that Rossi had   
seen at his house. Danielle winced a little at the sting of the antiseptic. Once the bandage was on that, the nurse turned to wrapping the ankle in an ace bandage to help stabilize it a bit. 

‘Ok, I need to go get you a set of crutches that you can use around home; I’ll be right back in a couple of minutes.’

Danielle only nodded quietly as the young woman got up to walk out of the room

As the team had been just out in the hallway, they saw everything that had just happened. 

JJ was the first to speak up, ‘You guys call me the Pennsylvania Pixie, but this girl is smaller than me.”

Rossi only nodded quietly. He was the first one through the door to the room. Danielle had been watching the floor, then she would tilt her head up counting the spots on the tiles in the ceiling; her long hair draped over one shoulder. When she heard the door swing open she looked up at the agents coming through the door.

“Sir?” she was about to hop down off of the table, until Morgan stopped her, placing a hand on her shoulder to let her know to sit still. She winced a little, letting out a tiny gasp. 

“Dave….remember.”

She nodded. 

“Is your shoulder hurt?” Hotch asked her. She tilted her head, arching an eyebrow at him. She wasn’t sure about these new people. 

“It’s alright; he’s our unit chief, our boss.” Dave told her. 

“Okay.” She moved the neckline of the hospital gown a bit to show the shoulder and there were several bruises there….one was a definite handprint, you could see the finger marks; but other than that the shoulder was near black and blue in some places. She fixed the gown back the way it belonged. 

“So what do you agents need me for? I have to get dressed and go.”

“You’re not going home.” Hotch told her.

“W-what? I h-have to. He’ll come looking for me. You already know this Mr. Dave. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Don’t you have any family?” Prentiss asked. 

The girl shook her head ‘no’. “My dad died from ALS when I was 10. Mom died of Cancer when I was 13. I was raised by my grandparents after that. But they’ve been dead for years.”

“How old are you?” Reid asked. 

“Um…37, almost 38. Why?” 

“You don’t look it at all,’ JJ commented. 

“Well, like I said, I need to go….I just need to find my clothes….”

JJ stepped forward with a bag in her hand. “It’s just some sweat pants, T-shirt, and a hoodie…but we figured you might like some fresh clothes.”

“Are you kidding me? If I come home in this stuff he really will beat me then…he’ll want to know where I got these and who I’ve been talking to. It’ll be bad enough as it is. He knows I went to your house…” She   
looked over at Rossi. 

She scooted past Derek, trying to take a step down onto the floor, her sprained left ankle giving her pain; she let out a little whimper. Derek was the first one to offer her help.

“I got this. it isn’t the worst that’s ever happened. I just gotta go. If he sees me talking to you people…”

“We won’t let him near you….”Hotch began to promise.

“First question. Why are ya’ll so interested in me? Second…What makes you think you can stop him? And don’t you think I’ve heard all these promises before? Nobody can stop him.” She tried to turn and find her old   
clothes, what was left of them anyway, grumbling.

“What did you just say?” Rossi asked her.

She looked at him worriedly, like maybe he would be angry at her for what she said. 

“Danielle, you can tell us anything….”

“Nobody can stop him. And more to the point, nobody has ever wanted to.”

“Why not?” Emily was starting to get as angry as Dave over this whole situation now.

“He’s a cop. All he does is go in bat his eyes and walk back out. The one time I tried complaining to his superior officer….you don’t know how hard it was to leave the house to begin with. I nearly had to bust out a   
window….he keeps me locked in….and the windows were nailed shut. I was lucky to find a pair of scissors to even pry the window open….then I had to hitch a ride to the station. I don’t know how the chief knew   
me, but I told him what happened. 

Later that night when Lonnie got home….” 

She hopped around on her good foot to try to locate her clothes, not finding them she looked around the room.

“Where are my things?” she was getting upset.

“You can put these on,’ JJ tried again. 

“I told you….”

“And we’ve told you that you’re not going back to that house.”Hotch sounded as stern as ever. “So you can take the clothes we have. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

The woman slowly took the bag, wearily watching Hotch.

“You never answered my question. Why are ya’ll interested in me?” 

“Well you showed up on Dave’s doorstep in bad condition. If Dave cares, we care.”

“I can’t go back to your house si….Dave; he already knows I went there the first time. I can’t make trouble for you.”

“I was in the Marines, I ate trouble for breakfast.”

Danielle seemed to study Rossi a little bit. “Oh my God!”

“What?” Rossi was curious as to what caused this display.

“Lonnie knows I love books….that I love reading….I used to have so many books, I could have started my own little ghetto library. He got mad at me once….we had a huge fight….he burnt them all…except one that   
I was able to save….I have it hidden in the couch. I had to cut open part of the guts of the couch to hide it.”

“What book was it?” 

“It was one of yours…..When he would take me somewhere, and we’d pass by your house, I always kept thinking that I knew you from someplace, but I couldn’t think where. And since I didn’t know anybody in the   
neighborhood, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Your book is the only one I have left. A friend of mine back home had bought it for me for my birthday, right before we moved. It’s all I have left. He can’t think I’m at   
your house….he’ll make trouble for you….I have to go back.” She was clutching the bag of clothes and tears were running down her cheeks; she just knew she was as good as dead. 

“You can stay at my place.” 

Everybody turned and looked at Morgan like he had grown two more heads. They knew that she couldn’t go back to her home. But they had no idea that he would step forward that way.

“Well she said it herself; he already knows that she was at Rossi’s earlier. If she went back, it would make it too easy for him to find her.”

“What about the women’s shelters?” Reid asked out of idle curiosity.

“Banned from them. He’s come up there starting trouble so many times….they won’t let me back. I’ll just go back. It’ll be alright.” She tried to smile reassuringly; it wasn’t working. She knew better, and the team   
knew she knew better.

“No, you’re going to stay with me.”

“But you’re girlfriend….or your wife….no.” 

“I’m single.”

“Why? I mean….” Danielle shook her head to try to make sense of things. JJ had a smile on her face that she was trying to hide.

“I don’t know…..” Danielle was still unsure about things. It would have been bad enough if he was married or seeing someone. But somehow the fact that he was single was sort of scary, too.

“Look. My friend Penelope can come over. She can bring some nail polish and girl stuff; Emily and JJ can jump in on it….make it a girl’s night. I have plenty of room. And that way it would look more like friends   
hanging out if anyone asks around.”

“Yeah, it would be sort of fun, I think. You’re gonna love Pen. And she will just want to eat you up.” JJ was trying to sell it hard.

“Why?” 

“Well, Pen is just different. She loves to make everybody happy. The three of us are like sisters….and you’ll become her baby sister quick if you aren’t careful.”

“I’ve never had any brothers or sisters….what’s it like?”

“I have two sisters. They’re alright….since I’m the only boy, sometimes they give me troubles…”

“Hey, if you want you can borrow some of my books sometime.” Reid stepped forward.

The young woman had started sliding the T-shirt on over her hospital gown, then putting the sweat pants on under the gown as well, before wiggling out of the gown altogether. She didn’t seem to notice the   
smile that Morgan had on his face. The sweat pants were so long and baggy on her that they hung off of her feet; the T-shirt was a better fit, if just barely, it only hung down a little past her waist.

Looking up as she heard what Reid said, she asked him what kind of books he had.

“All kinds. What subject do you like the most?”

“I always liked history. I figured that was a given, being raised by my grandparents.”  
“My mom was a professor of 15th century literature at one time.” 

“No! For real? Awww. I definitely wanna see some of your books.” She started rubbing her head a little bit.

“Are you alright Danielle?” 

“Yes, Dave. I just have a bit of a headache.”

“Ma’am, what are you doing up? We have to get you set up for the ultra-sound. And you really shouldn’t be on that ankle.” 

The nurse, Nurse Robin, had come back, mortified seemingly, that Danielle was up moving around. 

“They said I didn’t have to go back….I was just….” 

“Where are you going to go? In the meantime, please stay off of the ankle.”

“He said I could stay with him and his friends.” For the first time since everyone had met Danielle she seemed like she might actually be happy.

“Okay well we’ll see. But in the meantime, sit down and keep the weight off that ankle. The doctor will have my hide otherwise.” 

“Right….sorry.” Danielle turned to look at the examination table and scratched her head…”Um…”

“Come here…” Derek grabbed her under the arms and carefully lifted her onto the table. When he did so the pants legs to the sweat pants dangled past her feet. Emily and JJ couldn’t contain the giggles no matter how hard they tried.

“I’ll get on the phone and tell Pen she needs to pick up clothes that fit a lot better than these do.” JJ walked out of the room, Emily not far behind.

Once the nurse saw that Danielle was seated back on the examination table, she turned a withering look on Hotch and Rossi. “You two come with me.” She stiffly turned her back to them and led them out of the   
room.

Once the door closed the nurse turned to them and gave them a dressing down. 

“You better make sure you can protect her from this creep. I’ve seen her come in here way too many times the past couple of years. I don’t always get her case, but I have still seen her here. If you don’t intend to   
keep her safe and do whatever you have to do to make that happen then you should leave now. I will not have her trifled with…..’ she was about to continue when Hotch held up a hand to silence her. 

“Ma’am, we have every intention of helping her. We aren’t going to let him do this again.”

“Well…good. That poor girl needs somebody to take care of her. She hasn’t got a soul in the world right now. And the damned police have been useless. Since he is a cop they want to take sides with their brother in blue….meanwhile she sits in there, black and blue, broken bones and all. I won’t have you get her hopes up just to have her sent back to that house again.” 

“Ma’am, we would never…..and besides, does it look like to you that that man will ever get her back?” Rossi pointed back into the room. Through the glass of the door Hotch, Rossi, and the nurse could see Morgan   
and Reid talking to Danielle about God knows what…trying to keep her mind off of what was going on around her. Reid was even able to scare up enough supplies to do some of his physics magic for her. When   
there was loud popping sound made by the canister, she laughed out loud and then tried to get quiet, looking around as if she expected to get into trouble.

“Dr. Reid, you’re gonna get me kicked out of this place If you keep this up.” She said, but she couldn’t stop giggling. 

“Oh, there’s something that I completely forgot,’ Danielle had put her hand over her mouth as she remembered her thought.

“What is it?” Morgan asked. 

“My dogs…I forgot my dogs.”

“We can get them for you. What kind of dogs are they?”

“Where are we going to put them?”

“They can come to my place, too. I have a dog named Clooney….he’s a German Shepard.”

“I have two Irish Wolfhounds, Bailey and Kissy.”

“Hotch and I can go get them….”

“But be careful. Lonnie has a Rottweiler, Dingle. He’s a beautiful dog, but sometimes he’s mean.”

“Ok, thanks for the heads-up. We’ll go get them after we get you settled at my place. I’ll have Pen come over so you don’t have to be alone in a strange place. Besides, she can help you with stuff since you’re   
supposed to stay off that ankle as much as possible.”  
Nurse Robin came back in from giving Hotch and Rossi the third degree stating that the ultrasound had been arranged and that she needed to take Danielle to the room for that. 

“Where are the crutches that I’m supposed to have?”

“They will be in your possession before you leave. But for right now, this will do.” She scooted a wheel chair forward. Danielle nodded and began to scoot back down off of the table until Morgan stepped up and scooped her up in his arms. Danielle just looked at him for a second, bewildered. Hotch and Rossi smirked at each other.

“Just show me how to get there.” Derek instructed Robin. 

“Alright, follow me.” She knew enough not to argue with the FBI.

On the way there, Danielle did her best to make herself clear to Derek. 

“You coulda let me ride in the wheel chair, ya know. It woulda been alright.”

“What kind of friend would I be then?”

“You’re my friend?” Danielle asked perplexed.

“Of course; you sound surprised.”

Danielle made a quiet ‘oh’ sound. “It’s been a long time since anyone was my friend…I mean, for real, my friend.”

“You said that one of your friends gave you that book.”

“She was just the wife of one of Lonnie’s cop friends. I barely knew her much at all; matter of fact, I only met her like three times. But I don’t really have any friends of my own. Lonnie doesn’t….” she stopped herself   
from rambling too much.

“You can tell me anything you want to; you know that right?”

“Maybe.” 

“Here we go Agent Morgan. Just set her down over there on that exam table. The tech will be in shortly to get you scanned.” 

Nurse Robin must have seen some worry in Danielle’s eyes, ‘Do you want me to come and sit with you while you get the scan done?”

Danielle nodded her head quickly, regretting the movement when her head throbbed.

“Alright, I can do that. But Agent Morgan, you will have to sit out there and wait with the others.”

“But…”

“It’ll be alright, Robin will be here. We practically know each other.” Danielle spoke carefully to Derek.

“I will be right outside the door….”

“Whatever you say…” 

Morgan stood outside in the hallway, just across from the door, to make it feel as though he was giving them a little more privacy. He just met her but he didn’t like leaving her alone. Morgan didn’t know a lot about   
ultrasounds, but as far as he was concerned this one was taking too long. He decided to call his mother. It probably wouldn’t hurt to ask her to come down, just on the off chance the team got called away on a case. If that happened then Pen would be needed in the office and there would likely be nobody that could help take care of Danielle. And more to the point, he needed someone that could keep their eyes peeled for her husband. He didn’t want his mom to do anything that would get her put into danger. But an extra set of eyes never killed anybody. And since she had the experience as a nurse, she would be wonderful help for Danielle. 

The phone rang three times before Fran Morgan picked it up, ‘Hello?”

“Mama, hey.”

“It’s my baby. How are you doing today? Did you have a bad case again?”

“In a manner of speaking…..”

Derek could hear his mother getting comfortable in her favorite chair, ‘Tell me about it.”

“A woman came running to Rossi’s house, her husband had beaten her pretty badly. We got her to the hospital. One of her eyes is swollen shut; she sprained her left ankle from tripping as she ran. She has a couple   
of cracked ribs….the doctor said she was pretty lucky though considering that she is also pregnant. 

Mama, we can’t let her go back to that house.”

“I should say not. What is she going to do?”

“Well she can’t stay at Rossi’s in case her husband comes looking for her again. He already knows she was there earlier. Hotch & JJ both have kids. I’m letting her stay with me.”

“Letting? They have women’s shelters for this sort of thing.”

“Mama, her husband is a police officer. She’s tried the women’s shelters before; he always finds her and makes trouble for her…coming around scaring the other women. She’s been banned from them.”

“What about family?”

“Her dad died when she was 10, her mom when she was 13; after that she was raised by her elderly grandparents who have been dead for the better part of 15 years or so now. She doesn’t have any brothers or sisters to count on.”

“That poor girl….”

“Mama, I needed to ask if you have any time to come out here for a little while. I can take care of her for the most part…..and Pen and the girls can help. But if we get called away on a case, she’ll have nobody there to help her.”

“I can be on the next flight out sometime tonight. You would have to pick me up at the airport…..”

“I can get Penelope to bump your flight up sooner….you could be here before sundown. I can be waiting at the airport once I know what time to expect you.” 

“I do need to pack son.”

“Sorry but, I also kind of missed you a lot as well.” Derek sounded sheepish. 

“Alright, go ahead and have Pen bump my flight. But give me a good two hours to pack and get to the airport at the very least.”

“Yes ma’am….I’ll see you in a couple of hours mama.”

“Bye baby boy.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Morgan didn’t seem to notice was the orderly that had been emptying the trash bin near-by. He was studying Morgan, listening as closely as he could to the conversation. 

‘So the whore is staying with him? The old man gets a pass. For now.’


	3. What No One Knew: Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danielle meets Mama Morgan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The marriage date of May 10th for Danielle and Lonnie was picked because it is my mother's birthday. The last name Blanchard was picked because, where I grew up as a child, the name Blanchard is a common last name. The last name Riddick was picked because that is the surname of my maternal great-grandmother's family, the Riddicks.

After the sonogram was run and they found out that the baby seemed to be quite healthy, the decision was made that it should be alright let Danielle leave the hospital….to be in the care of Agent Morgan, so long as he was able to keep an eye on her due to the concussion. 

“I got it covered doc. My mom is a nurse back home in Chicago. I already have her flying in today. She’ll be here before nightfall. I wanted her there since she knows more about what she’s doing, medically  
speaking. Besides, I didn’t want Danielle left alone if our team got called out on a case. I thought it would be safer having her around for a little while.”

Danielle’s head had snapped up when she heard this. He had called his mother?

The look on Danielle’s face didn’t escape Morgan in the least; his only response was to wink at her, quickly. 

“You didn’t have to do that….I can take care of myself if I have to.” She looked sort of worriedly over at Morgan. 

“That’s great and everything; but now you don’t have to.” He smiled at her kindly then. 

“Mrs. Blanchard, considering the physical state that you are in, and the pregnancy on top of all of that, it would be in your best interest to let his mother help you if she’s willing to do so.”

“It’s just….” Her voice dropped off, her eyes cast downward, towards the floor.

“What is it Danielle?” Rossi asked.

“Never mind; it’s nothing. I’ll behave, I promise.”

“Alright then, with that settled, let me go get the final paperwork drawn up and we can get her out of here into more comfortable arrangements.”

‘That’s what he thinks….’ Danielle couldn’t help but think to herself.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Four hours later, Derek was carrying Danielle up to the front door of his apartment. She had already argued over the fact that she was perfectly capable of using the crutches; but it was futile. He argued back that the rest of her body was banged up bad enough that she would never make it on those things. And he shot down the argument about using the wheelchair to get up there, too. 

“My front door isn’t wide enough to fit the wheelchair through; you’d grow old and die in the door way.”

She sort of gave a growl of discontent when he hoisted her up, bridal style and made his way confidently to the door of his apartment building and then on into the apartment itself. 

He made his way through the apartment, glad that he had thought ahead to making his bed with clean sheets before they had left on that last case; last night he had crashed on the couch, he had been so tired, and  
fell asleep watching TV…so the bed was still neatly made. He made his way into his room and set her down on the foot of the bed, careful to not let her sprained ankle hit anything. After seeing that she was set  
down as carefully as possible, he began turning the covers back. 

Derek noticed Danielle looking around trying to figure out just exactly what was going on. He saw the moment that it clicked in her head that this was his room. Her eyes became huge and he could almost see the  
tension vibrating off of her.

“I-I-I can sl-sleep on the c-couch.”

“No.” 

“There’s got to be a guest room.”

“Momma’s staying there; it still has a lot of stuff in there from her last visit…at least on the vanity.”

Danielle was looking away like she was trying to figure out a new argument to use and failing miserably at it. She exhaled a shaky breath. 

“I can’t let you sleep on the sofa. If that asshole tries to come after you, you’d be right in his path. I’ll take the couch. I usually only sleep about four hours a night anyway. If he tries to make it through me, he’s going  
to have his hands full.”

“Why do you sleep so very little?” she was looking at him curiously now.

“Mostly because of nightmares….sometimes with our work, we see some pretty shitty stuff.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Danielle stated quietly.

“Most of the time it’s not that big a deal. Sometimes we can figure out ways to cope pretty well. But we each have a case every once in a while that just eats us up and we can’t help it. Now, come on; I want you to get  
settled for now. Momma will be here soon. I have to go get her from the airport.” 

Danielle’s eyes took on a panicked appearance. “Don’t worry. I’ve got Pen coming by to sit with you.” 

Danielle only lowered her eyes again and nodded. As much as she hated the idea of being alone with this strange man, she hated the idea of having to get used to another stranger again today. 

Morgan must’ve sensed this…indecision; he picked up his cell and made three phone calls. The first was to Hotch; he arranged to have Hotch meet his mother at the airport. Next, he called his mother; he needed to  
let her know of the change of plans, explaining that it just didn’t feel right leaving Danielle alone with a total stranger so soon. Lastly, he called Penelope and told her that she could wait until later tonight to come  
over, that he wasn’t sure how it would go over to have Danielle around someone else she didn’t know so quickly. While he had Garcia on the phone he walked out into his hallway, closing the door to the bedroom slightly, and asked her to do some digging on Lonnie Blanchard. He wanted to know every last detail about the bastard; even down to his average work schedule.

“What are you planning to do Stud?” Garcia had asked into the phone.

“Nothing; but a little knowledge never hurt anybody. And I thought that once you and the girls came over and all got acquainted that either tonight or tomorrow night Hotch, Reid, and I could go over and get some of her things for her. And we wanted to know when he would be there.”

“Derek….”

“Nah, I won’t do anything bad; unless he forces me to. I’ll have Hotch arrange a warrant. He used to be a lawyer, he knows some judges. And for damn sure if he doesn’t know enough of them, Rossi does.”

“Whatever you do, just be careful. “

“Of course Baby Girl. You know how I roll.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. You go in kicking a door off its hinges and wind up getting your fool-self shot at. I love the hell out of you, but one of these days you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“I’ll wear my vest mama bear.”

“Totally beside the point lover boy. Anyway, what’s this girl like?”

“Petite, brunette…”

“Your type….”

“Banged up and afraid. I swear, if I was to sneak up behind her and say ‘BOO’ I think she would shit herself.”

“That’s not funny Derek.”

“I’m not saying it to be funny; I’m being brutally fucking honest. Although, I will say that Reid was able to get a few laughs out of her with his physics magic earlier. She mentioned how she used to like to read so  
much, but her husband burned all of her books; Reid promised to bring some of his by later for her to borrow. You’d love her to death. JJ has already warned her that you’d adopt her.”

The whole time Derek has been talking to Pen, he could hear her fingers tapping away on a keyboard. He knew for a solid fact she was already looking up information on this Lonnie Blanchard.

“Well damn, JJ is always stealing my thunder. Would you like to know what I’ve found so far?”

“Yes, St. Jude.”

“Be. Nice…..Ok. Lonnie Blanchard. Birth name Lawrence, I’d stick with a nickname too, I suppose. He was born June 12, 1973. He is originally from Virginia Beach. He married Danielle Marie Riddick on May 10, 2004.  
They’ve moved a few times over the last 10 years or so, it seems. He is currently paying the mortgage faithfully on the house their living in; it seems as though he had made a lot of money working for some private security companies; he’s good with money it seems, outside of his house and maybe his vehicle, he lives well within his means. Oh, here we go….there is a storage building that he has been renting since they moved into town….” Garcia made sure that Derek knew that she was sending the address to his cell as they spoke.

Suddenly there was a ‘THUD’ heard coming from Derek’s room. Without hanging up Derek sped back into the room, looking for Danielle.

“Sweet heart what are you doing?” Danielle had fallen out of his bed and was currently sitting on her backside in the carpeted floor.

“I had to go to the restroom….” She tried to sit up a bit, wincing. 

“You should have called me…”

“I was going to toss a shoe at the door, but when I leaned over to get it, it was out of my reach….the bed is too high for me….and I fell out. Your house is not short-person friendly.”

Garcia was still on the line, and she couldn’t help but giggle slightly at Derek getting told. And the woman that she could hear speaking sounded just adorable. ‘Poor Derek….Poor, sweet, Derek.’ Garcia thought to  
herself, ‘He doesn’t really stand a chance does he?’

“Garcia, I gotta go. Come over around…maybe…7. Oh, by the way, thank you for bumping mom’s flight. Coming over around 7 will give me time to get mom settled down a little and get Danielle seen to.”

“Alright Hot Stuff, I’ll be there later. And JJ called me and told me about getting more suitably fitting clothes for our new friend, so I’ll be bringing those as well. Rossi’s handed over his black card.”

Derek could almost hear the giddy excitement in her voice, ‘Take it easy on the old man.”

“I will, I will. No fun, I swear. You men are always trying to keep me down.” 

Derek chuckled, ‘Bye Baby Girl.”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell her I said ‘Hello’.”

Derek disconnected the call, setting his phone down, and leaned over to scoop Danielle out of the floor. She scooted back from him a bit.

Seeing his confused look, ‘You said you didn’t have a girlfriend. I would never have….”

“That was Garcia…one of the ones I said would come over and hang out with you. She’s my best friend…that’s all.” 

“I just figured it would be weird having a woman in your house…ya know because…”

“No worries. My last relationship ended months ago.”

“Was the woman impaired?” Danielle looked at Morgan utterly confused for just a moment before shaking her head, ‘I mean, never mind, that’s none of my business.”

Morgan grinned at her, ‘I ended it. She didn’t get the fact that my job takes up so much of my time.” 

“Well, she was stupid.” 

Derek only shook his head as he scooped her off the floor and carried her to the bathroom. He set her down once they were inside. 

“Out; my body functions get a little stage fright in front of an audience.”

“I’m going shorty. Just bang on the cabinet when you’re ready to come out.”

“Shorty? Ooh! You wait.” She was about to start dancing, she had to go so bad.

Derek laughed as he shut the door behind him. He was going to try to figure something out for her to eat; perhaps some soup. He wasn’t sure what she might be able to handle, and that seemed the lesser of the  
evils. He still had some Chicken Tortilla soup that had black beans, corn, and cilantro all in it that Pen had made last week. He decided to take some of that out of the freezer and heat it up. He put that in a medium sauce pot, turning the heat up to medium, and made his way back towards the bathroom when he heard Danielle moving around. 

When he rounded the corner he noticed that she had made her way out into the hall without notifying him. 

“I thought I said to bang on the cabinet and I would come and get you.”

The sound of his voice caused both of her feet to come off of the floor, she flinched. 

“I told you I can still do some stuff on my own.”

“Not. The. Point. You don’t have to do it on your own; that’s why I brought you back here so you wouldn’t have to do it by yourself.” He scooped her up again.

“Well soon enough you’ll get tired of carrying me around…”

“Try harder.” 

“Maybe I’ll get tired of being carried.”

“Too bad.”

“Look…I’m used to doing everything for myself. It’s been a long time since anybody has taken care of me. Let me do it.”

“Nope.”

In the midst of the conversation, Hotch had arrived at Morgan’s house with his mother in tow. It had been five hours since he called her when they were at the hospital with Danielle. Hotch and Fran could hear the  
conversation rattling on. 

“Oh lord, one’s as stubborn as the other…”

“Fran, are you sure you won’t allow me to assign you some back up?”

“I raised that boy. I got this.”

“Ok, well, I’ll take your bags into the guest room.”

“Thank you Agent Hotchner.”

“Ma’am, you can call me Aaron.”

“And you can call me Fran.”

Fran made her way into the kitchen to see if Derek had thought about feeding the poor woman; she smiled when she saw the soup in the pot…and she was impressed. It was something relatively healthy….Her son,  
the pizza fanatic. She could still hear them chattering down the hall in the bedroom.

“Did she tell you about his storage building?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometime, can somebody go get a box of things from there for me? It’s not big…It won’t take up much space. I promise.”

“Don’t worry about it. I can talk to Emily and Reid before they come over and see if they can get into the place.”

“They’ll need a key…”

“Nah. They have bolt cutters.” Again, he winked at her, this time earning him a small laugh. “Well, I’m going to go check on dinner.”

“You didn’t have to make me anything…”

“It’s some soup that Penelope made for me last week. I stored the excess in the freezer, so that all I had to do was heat it up. I’m going to go check and make sure that I haven’t left it for too long.” He settled her back onto the bed, making sure she was comfortable, pulling the covers up a bit. As he made his way out into the hall he was confronted by his mother, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and a glass of water on it. 

“Mama, when did….”

“I just came in maybe 10 minutes ago. You were having a discussion with your house guest and I didn’t want to interrupt. Aaron has already gotten my things put in my room. He’s out in the living room if you want  
to go speak to him.”

While Derek and his mom were speaking in the hall, Danielle had pulled herself up into the sitting position; she was scared to death. His mom was here. She began running her fingers through her hair trying to make sure she wasn’t a total wreck until she remembered what she looked like with her eye swollen shut and gave up. 

Fran walked in and saw the tiny woman sitting up in the bed, trying to get situated, wincing in pain. She set the tray down on the dresser that was across from the bed and went over to help her.

The woman flinched when she felt a hand take her by the arm. Danielle looked up at Fran for a split second and then quickly looked down again. 

“I can do it. It’s just my arm hurts a little.”

“Hush. I’m helping you and that’s final.”

“Well, you must be Agent Morgan’s mother.”

“You can call me Fran or Mama Morgan…most everybody does.” Fran turned to retrieve the tray, adjusting it so the legs to it dropped down before she placed it over Danielle’s lap. As she turned back around she  
noticed Danielle still trying to make heads or tails out of her unruly hair; then she noticed the woman holding her forehead with one hand. 

“Are you alright dear?”

“My head is splitting. Doc said I had a mild concussion. But he forgot to mention the Godzilla sized headache that I was going to have.”

“I can go and get you some aspirin for it. Just sit here and have some soup, and I’ll be right back.”

Fran was only gone for a moment or two, but when she came back she saw that the girl had managed to scrunch back down in the bed, covering her eyes to keep the light out of them; the tray was still sitting in the  
same position, somehow Danielle had managed not to knock it over.

Fran sat the bottle of aspirin down on the night table and removed the tray, ‘Baby what’s wrong?”

“I feel like my head is going to split open….Can you turn the lamp off please?”

Fran jumped and did just that; while she was at it she closed the curtains to make it even darker in the room.

“Migraine, huh?”

“Yes. Kill me now. I gotta get up.” Danielle began scrambling to get out of bed. Fran ran over to keep her from getting out of bed. Knowing how a migraine works, Fran grabbed a trash can that was near the bed.

“You don’t need to be getting out of the bed.” After handing over the trash can, Fran took the tray of food from Danielle so it wouldn’t get knocked over. While Danielle vomited into the trash can, Fran went to the  
bathroom and got a damp rag and brought it back to wipe her face off, trying to be careful of the eye that was swollen shut. 

“You don’t have to be so careful, Ma’am. It doesn’t even hurt that much. After the first few times, you don’t even notice it anymore….I wanna try to eat now. I’m hungrier than I thought.”

“First of all, it’s Mama Morgan to you….’ She saw the girl silently nod with a look on her face like she felt she was getting admonished. “And secondly…..secondly….you need some taking care of after everything.”  
Danielle managed a few bites of soup before she became a little tired; the headache, though weaker, was still playing hell with her. Fran moved the tray back across the room and ran back rewetting the rag that she had to keep it applied to Danielle’s forehead. Fran sat on the bed, a little behind Danielle, pulling her back to rest against her chest, rubbing her face with the rag. 

“I’ll sit with you for a while, until you fall asleep.”

“Y-you don’t have to. I’ll be fine.” 

Fran could hear sadness in the girl’s voice. “Hush, arguing will only make your headache worse. Just relax.” 

It seemed to take less than five minutes, and the girl was asleep, her head resting against Fran’s chest; Fran’s arms had wrapped around the girl and she had been massaging her temples to try to help relieve the headache a little bit. Once she was sure the girl was asleep, Fran maneuvered from behind her, standing up, laying Danielle back on the pillow. She saw tear tracks on the girl’s cheeks. Fran made her way out of the room, leaving the door cracked about two inches. 

Walking back into the kitchen, Fran saw Derek look up at her.

“Did Agent Hotchner get on the road alright?”

“Yeah. How is she?”

“She has a migraine, so she’s feeling sort of nauseated…..”

“Momma…?”

“She’s sad baby. She won’t talk about it, but she’s so very sad.”

Derek was checking the text message that Garcia just sent him and smiled, ‘Well Pen and the girls are going to be here in about 10 minutes. And I know how Garcia works. She’ll have the girl talking in no time flat.  
And Hotch and the fellas are coming with them it seems.”

“I’m going to go back and check on her. I’ll sit with her until they get here. I don’t want her to be alone when she wakes up.” 

Derek smiled at his mom and said a quiet ‘thank you’ as she turned to walk back down the hall to the bedroom. Derek decided that he would call in some delivery while he waited for the team to get there. That soup had been enough to feed two people at the very most, but it would not make it around a room full of seven or eight people. He knew that Pen liked Asian fusion a lot, so he ordered from that new Thai place up the street; it was the least he could do if they were going to try to use Garcia to get the girl to open up at all….a little bribe never hurt.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Outside, across the street, in a row of on-street parking belonging to the building there, a man stood outside in front of a non-descript old Ford Bronco II; a throw-back to the 1980’s. He had the hood raised as if he was inspecting a problem with something there. He had his small flashlight out, even though there was still plenty of daylight left, to make it look as though he was thoroughly inspecting the issue at hand. He watched as two different dark SUV’s pulled up to the building where he had seen the others take his wife. He watched carefully as each person got out of the vehicles and made their way into the building. Holding the flashlight with his mouth he grabbed his cell phone and began snapping pictures of them as quickly as he could. Before he decided to strike he would do his homework. 

‘No slip ups,’ he muttered to himself as he put his cell phone back into his pocket and got into the truck to drive away.


	4. What No One Knew: Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danielle meets Garcia finally.

It was getting to be around 6:30 pm; the team had all come over to Morgan’s place, Derek greeted them at the door and explained that his mother was checking on Danielle and would be joining them shortly for dinner. Speaking of dinner, Derek explained what they were having and that he decided on that since they were relying on Garcia to try to talk to the girl a bit and get her to open up.

“Why me?” Garcia sounded shocked.

“Why not you?” Hotch asked.

“I’m not a profiler.”

“Pen, she doesn’t need a profiler, she needs a friend.” JJ spoke quietly, everyone else nodding their heads in agreement.

“And if there is one person in this room that can make a person talk it would be you.”

“I don’t have interrogation skills Rossi.”

“No, but everybody loves you. You don’t have to interrogate her; just talk to her, try to find some common bond or something to make her feel like she’s got someone she can trust.”

“I don’t know if I like this plan.”

“What could go wrong?” Prentiss asked.

“What happens if she starts to feel like we are only doing this out of pity or out of some misguided attempt to use her as a pawn? If I do this, it’s because I do want her to have a real friend and not an engineered   
one.” 

“Garcia, that’s all we want. We can’t let her go back home with that monster. But right now, the only reason she is likely staying with Morgan is because she was left no other choice in the matter. We need to make   
her understand that we do care.” 

Garcia looked directly at Hotch as he spoke. He was telling the truth. “Alright, I’ll do it. But this better not blow up in her face, or ours.”

“It won’t….” 

“Well, she’s still sleeping for now.” Fran had come out of Derek’s room with an announcement about Danielle.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” JJ looked concerned.

“Earlier she had a banging migraine. It was probably a combination between that and the pregnancy that made her so sick while ago….but she’s calmer now and sleeping.” 

“Well, dinner should be here within the next 10-15 minutes. I called it in nearly a half an hour ago. And, on a side note….Reid, I have plenty of forks for you, ya know, in case you need them.” Morgan just smiled   
hugely at the young man. 

“Bite me. I just prefer to make sure that my food can’t run away. It’s a lot harder to get away from a fork than it is from two oversized tooth picks.”

Right on time; the food came. The team, plus Derek’s mom sat around and talked about a little bit of everything. When Mrs. Morgan was gonna get up and go check on Danielle, Rossi jumped up to volunteer. 

“Which room is she in?” 

“Derek’s room…” Fran noticed the look that everyone was giving her son; arched eyebrows, with slight grins. ‘Profilers, go figure.’ She just chuckled. It seemed as though she may have put Derek in the hot seat   
accidently. 

Rossi made his way down the hall to look in on the woman. He carefully pushed the door open; Danielle was curled up on her right side deeply asleep, the covers were pulled up close to her face leaving enough   
space for her to have room to breathe, the drapes were still closed, and her face was still a little pinched from the migraine that she was fighting. He walked quietly over to the bed, feeling her forehead to see if she   
felt warm or anything like that. She seemed so small. Yes, Derek’s bed was huge, king sized. But the way she was so tightly curled up she didn’t even take up half the bed. Rossi noticed she had her sprained left   
ankle carefully resting on her right leg, the angle of it trying to keep pressure off of it as much as possible. 

When Danielle felt someone touch her forehead, her eyes cracked open. She saw a man standing above her; he was the one that had touched her head. At first she was a little worried; she was having a little trouble   
getting oriented and figuring out where she was. But as her eyes focused she recognized the man and calmed down; her heart rate returned to normal and she could breathe normally again. 

“Hey sir.”

“I told you to call me Dave. How are you feeling?”

“I couldn’t get you to cut my head off could I?”

“Do you need any more aspirin?”

“Not yet, it hasn’t been long enough time since the last dose, I think.” Her eyes were closing in an attempt to ease the ache in her head.

“Well the team is out in the living room; Derek ordered dinner for us. Penelope is here as a matter of fact….”

“Yeah Derek made me some soup earlier, since I’m having so much trouble. He figured it would be easier for me to deal with.” 

“Do you want some Thai food? I can bring it in here if you want to try it?”

Danielle shook her head, her eyes closing painfully with the effort, ‘No. I’m not real sure what I’d be able to keep down if I did; between this migraine I have and the baby…I don’t think the Thai food would stand a   
chance.”

“Is there anything you want me to bring you?” 

“Do you know if Agent Morgan has any crackers and soda….I mean like ginger ale…just something light colored; the dark colored sodas give me an upset stomach.”

“I’ll go ask and see about getting some sent in. I hope this migraine, at least, goes away soon.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Dave cleared his throat.

“I mean thank you, Dave.” If her head hadn’t been pounding she might have smiled sheepishly at him.

Dave smiled back over to her, ‘No problem. One of us will be right back with it.”

With that Dave was gone; he asked Derek if he had the crackers and soda there, which he did, although the soda wasn’t ginger ale, it was Sprite…but it would have to work for now. 

After getting them together, Dave handed the items to Garcia and began leading her down the hall and opened the door to Derek’s room and gave her a gentle shove through the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Garcia saw the young woman turn her head carefully to look at her; her eyes were still squinted nearly all the way shut, as if the light from the hall, as dim as it was still hurt her eyes.

“Remind me to order some adult toys in Rossi’s name when I get home.”

“You…’ the woman winced as her head throbbed again, ‘You must be Penelope.”

“Yeah, I guess it was easy to figure out since I was the only one you haven’t really met until now.”

“Mmm hmmm.”

“They had me bring you these. There wasn’t any ginger ale, but there was some Sprite, so hopefully that will work until Derek can make it to the store.”

“I’m sorry they have thrown you in here with me. It’s a lot like getting stuck at the kids table at dinner on Thanksgiving at your aunt’s house.”

“They just thought that we should try to get to know each other and be friends.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I guess because both of my parents died when I was young and I had to fend for myself after that…sometimes getting myself into more trouble than I would like.”

This started off a conversation between the two women; Garcia explaining that she knew about how Danielle’s parents died because of having been asked to look up whatever she could find about her life to help   
the team be better prepared to help her. Danielle was strangely quiet during most of this, just watching as Garcia spoke, and munching on her crackers. 

“Watching mom die was the worst. Daddy was already gone, and that had hurt, but at least I still had my momma. But after momma died…there was nobody. I mean my grandparents took me into their home; they   
raised me until I went into college. But it’s not the same. I just looked around and my parents were both gone.”

There was almost no sadness in her voice when Danielle spoke, just a very matter of fact tone. This made Garcia even sadder for the girl; Danielle had been so young when her parents died and had come to the   
stark realization that this was the way life was. 

After nearly 25 minutes of just hanging out and talking, Garcia noticed Danielle began to drift back off to sleep. Garcia stood and brushed some of the strands of hair out of Danielle’s eyes and made sure the covers   
were pulled up as far as necessary. The team might have been right. Garcia knew she had made a new friend, whether or not the other woman was sure of it. After seeing that the young woman was comfortable,   
she made her way out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her, continuing to make her way back down the hall to the living room area where everyone else was sitting around the room.


	5. What No One Knew: Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little sleep walking. Mama Morgan lays on some common sense. This chapter seemed shorter for some reason? Hmmm.

The next day, after that dinner at Derek’s, the team got called away on a case. They were out in Washington State; that ticked Derek off to no end. He didn’t like the idea of leaving his mom, Danielle, or Penelope alone without any of the team around them while this Lonnie guy was still on the loose. They had all the proof in the world of what he’d done, but Lonnie had seemed to disappear into thin air. There’d been no action on his credit cards lately. He didn’t seem to be staying at his house. Without a doubt some of his brothers in blue were hiding him somewhere and covering for him. They were likely buying things for him at the store. There had to be more than one of them involved in this conspiracy because if there was only one person helping him, there would be red flags popping up in their account activity. Yes, Pen had decided that she was going to put a flag on the bank accounts of all of the Lonnie’s fellow officers in his particular precinct. It was a hell of an undertaking but Pen wasn’t going to let this slippery bastard get away with anything very easily at all. If there were any unusually large purchases made at places like the grocery or department stores, outside of their average day to day business, Pen would be one of the first people to notice things. 

The case had lasted nearly two weeks. By the time that the team touched down back in Quantico it was after 11pm, and Hotch had informed the team that their reports could wait until the next day. He also informed them that after such a long case, that once their reports had all been finalized, they were being given four days off to get some rest. Derek had been chomping at the bit to get back home to Danielle and his mother ever since they slapped the handcuffs on the UNSUB. 

Derek thought about calling his mother to let her know that they were back in town and that he was on the way home, but as late as it was…he knew better than to wake up his mother. Oh no, you don’t wake Fran Morgan up out of a dead sleep at nearly 12:30 AM with a phone call unless you’re life is in peril or the house is on fire. And his mother was a red-head….all that meant was that a grumpy Fran was a scary Fran.   
Derek seemed to like his head where it was for the time being…he’d let her sleep.

Upon arriving home Derek was careful to make his way into his apartment as quietly as possible; he quickly adjusted the alarm so it wouldn’t raise the dead. He glanced around, his eyes getting adjusted to the dark in the room, trying to figure out why Clooney hadn’t come running out to greet him or to let the entire neighborhood know he was back; that was a curious set of circumstances indeed. 

Dropping his bag just beyond the door, Derek made his way through his apartment, first going to the kitchen to grab a quick drink of water. After wetting his whistle, Derek made his way up the hall to go check on   
Danielle, to see if she was sleeping comfortably. Opening the door to his bedroom, it became starkly apparent to him that she wasn’t in the bed where he expected her to be; the sheets were rumpled indicating that she had been there, but she was conspicuously missing now. Derek started to panic.   
If something had happened to Danielle, he’s 100% sure that his mother would have called him to tell him; pulling out his phone, he double checked….no missed calls from his mama. But then it worried him thinking that perhaps something bad had happened to both of them and his mother hadn’t been able to make the call. With that thought in his mind, Derek raced to his mother’s room, turning on a dim hall light, and carefully opened the door. 

Looking around his mother’s room in the low light, he noticed his mother sitting up in the bed, watching him with her forefinger pressed to her lips to signal to him that he needed to be quiet. Derek looked at his mother with a puzzled expression; Fran indicated with her other hand for him to look down. 

There, on the floor, at his mother’s bedside, was Danielle. She had somehow managed to get the comforter off of Derek’s bed, along with a pillow, and come in here and fallen asleep on the floor. Derek quietly shook his head before walking in and scooping up the bundle of blanket and Danielle and carrying them carefully back to his room to set them back into bed.

As Derek settled Danielle back into bed, getting the covers rearranged, he leaned over to stroke some hair out of her face and kiss her on the forehead. As he did so, he heard her mumble a question.

“Is mama alright?” 

Derek looked carefully at Danielle. Her eyes were still closed, she had never woken up; she was talking in her sleep. 

“Why what’s wrong?” Derek asked quietly to see what he might learn from her.

“She was calling me…I….I think her temperature got a little high. But she’s better now.”

Derek wondered what she was talking about, but he kept his questions to himself for the moment, thinking that his mother might be able to fill him in a little better.

“Ok, well, I think you better get some sleep. I can help mama until morning.”

With a little sigh of ‘M’kay’, Danielle turned over on her side, her right hand curled under her cheek, resting on the pillow and kept right on sleeping.

Derek walked back out into the hall and made his way back into the living room where his mother had a lamp on and sitting on the couch. 

“Ma, what was that about?”

“I don’t really know exactly baby. But I know she started doing it a couple days after you and the team left for the case. I didn’t know what was going on at first except that I’d hear her coming down the hall. She’d   
be saying ‘I’m coming mama, I’m coming….’ She’d toss her blanket and pillow in the floor and come over and feel my forehead. I never said a word. I could tell just by watching her, something in her eyes…she was   
still asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up. Once she had felt my forehead she went and got a wash cloth and went to the bathroom wetting it and brought it back, using it to wipe my face a bit as if trying to cool off a   
slight temperature. Once that was done she took the rag back into the bathroom and she made sure that the covers were up over me as well as possible and she got her blanket straightened out and laid down on the floor right beside the bed.”

Derek had listened carefully to everything. 

“Son what haven’t you told me about her?”

“Her dad died of ALS when she was 10; he had it for a few years. And then by the time she was 13 her mom died of cancer. Danielle did a lot to try to take care of her.”

“I see. When her mom had cancer and was so sick she would have to get up in the middle of the night and check on her….she just got so used to doing it that now it’s stuck in her head.”

“And I guess, after everything that has been happening, she was feeling more alone than ever.”

“Maybe that is what kicked this into gear for her. She began dreaming that her mom was still suffering from the cancer, because that was the last time that she felt like anybody needed her, or it was the last time   
that she had any feeling that anybody loved her….at all.”

“I’m not letting her go back to him.”

“I know you’re not. But what do you intend to do about her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is she a friend? Is she someone that you would be interested in dating and making my grandbabies with? Is she just going to live here, stuck in limbo until you decide?”

“Mom!” 

“You have to think about it son. I mean, what happens when she has completely healed up, at least physically? What happens then? Will she want to go back home; where is she going to go? I agree she shouldn’t   
have to go back to that house with her husband. 

And, then, what about her husband? What if he comes looking for her, wanting her back? Then what? I mean sure you might be able to handle things if you’re here. But what if he comes and you’re out on a case,   
and it’s only me or Penelope with her? Or God forbid, she’s doing better physically Penelope is at work at the office, and I have gone back to Chicago and Danielle is alone when he comes for her?” 

“Mom, I know I have a lot of things to consider. But, the past couple of weeks have not been the time to have this on my mind. But you have a lot of really good points. I have to go in tomorrow to put the finishing   
touches on my report about the case and then we have been granted four days off. I am going to try to use that time to think about what needs to happen next. If I have to I will call Hotch and ask him for a few   
extra days until I have everything straightened out.” 

“Alright, that’ll do for now. I didn’t want to seem to be jumping all over you when you just got home; I just thought that someone should clear out the elephant in the room.”

“It’s more than alright mama. You make a lot of very good points, and I do need to sit down and do a lot of thinking. I’m just glad we get these next few days off so I can do it.”

“Ok baby. It’s time to get to bed then. I’ll get up around 8 and make you some breakfast.” 

“Thanks mom.” 

Fran rubbed her son’s head a little as she hugged him before standing from her place on the couch beside him and making her way back down the hall to the guest room to go back to bed. 

Derek got his pillow and blanket ready and spread out on the couch, he also made sure that his gun was under the pillow and that the safety was on before lying his head down to rest. His sleep wasn’t completely   
uninterrupted; he couldn’t turn his brain off. All he could think about was his conversation with his mother. It was all true; he had to think carefully about what he was going to do next. He had to keep Danielle from going back to her husband. There was the fact that the man might kill her one day if things kept going the way they were; he had seen it a thousand times. But more to the point, all she was to her husband,   
Lonnie, was punching bag….to Derek she could be so much more, and he wasn’t ready to just let that all go.


	6. What No One Knew: Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid gets kidnapped again.

There was a creak in the floor board; that was what woke Derek up finally. Snapping awake, he sat up quickly pulling his gun from under the pillow, aiming in the general direction that he had heard the noise, and grabbing the first thing his free and came into contact with. Hearing a scream of fright his mind cleared enough to know what was going on; he let go of the night shirt that he had grabbed and started putting his gun down on the coffee table slowly. He was looking into the terrified eyes of Danielle. She was shaking and it seemed as though all the color had drained from her face. 

“Shit! I’m sorry are you OK?” Derek asked with a whisper.

She tried to nod ‘yes’, although it was unsteady to say the very least…she didn’t trust herself to try to speak at that moment.

“What time is it?” Derek kept watching her to make sure she was really alright.

Danielle swallowed hard to try to control herself “I d-d-don’t kn-know….m-ma-maybe se-seven.”

“What are you doing up? Mom will be making breakfast in about an hour or so. Scratch that…How did you get down the hall without help?”

At that Danielle smiled a little, carefully. “You’ve…You’ve been gone for a while. I….’ she was still trying to get her breathing back under control. “I have been able to start moving around a bit more….mostly when 

‘Ma’am’ isn’t looking.” The last bit of the confession was said as she began looking at the floor toying with the hem of her night shirt, which was actually one of Derek’s dress shirts, but he had given her to wear   
when she first came here.

“So you’ve been sneaking?”

“Don’t be mad.” Her voice sounded like it was quivering, as if she thought he’d really be mad about her trying to figure out how to get around. “Ma’am has been helping me so much….she’s so nice to me. Your   
mom really is pretty freaking awesome actually. But I’m used to having to take care of myself. It’s hard to just sit and do nothing all day.”

“You know you can call my mom ‘Fran’, right?”

“No….well, I mean…Yes…but…” getting frustrated, she began sort of tugging on the ends of her hair which hung precariously close to her hips. 

“You’re cute when you’re confused.”

“Oh, hush.” She gave him a scathing glare, ‘I wouldn’t be so confused all the time if you would quit putting me on the spot.”

“I think I like it when you’re confused….Wait. How do I keep putting you on the spot?”

“What do you think Ma’am is fixing for breakfast?”

“How do I keep putting you on the spot?”

Her stomach growled in the way that Derek thought only came from lumber-jacks and stout truckers named ‘Bubba’ or ‘Elvis; he couldn’t help but chuckle slightly.

“What. Is. Ma’am. Fixing. For. Breakfast.?”

“How. Do. I. Keep. Putting. You. On. The. Spot.?”

Danielle sat down on his coffee table. And, although most coffee tables were usually low to the ground, since Derek was a taller man, he had a larger coffee table; it had a wider surface area, and was slightly taller   
than average. This meant that as she sat on the table, the tips of her toes barely brushed the floor as she swung her legs back and forth. Derek watched; part in amusement, part from attraction. 

Grumbling, ‘Never mind. I can wait.”

Derek had moved around on the sofa until he was sitting in an upright position; he watched as Danielle seemed to focus on her feet swinging back and forth a bit, appearing to not give him the slightest notice.

Derek knew it was subterfuge; but he was not above playing a little dirty to achieve his goal. He sank to one knee in front of her at the table, watching her reaction at his sudden closeness. The shock was apparent   
on her face; she leaned back slightly to try to gain more space between their faces. But Derek followed her. 

His face was mere millimeters from hers, the tips of their noses almost touching, ‘Tell me how is it that I keep putting you on the spot, making you stay confused all the time?” He could tell exactly when Danielle had stopped breathing….

“Good morning baby boy,’ Derek nearly swore out loud; but then that would have earned him not only a death glare from his mama, but probably a well-placed blow to the back of the head. Danielle began trying   
to scramble up off of the table and away from Derek. 

Fran had a grin on her face, although Derek had yet to turn around to face her. She had been standing in the hallway and had overheard a great deal of the conversation. When it got too quiet she thought she   
better check to see what was going on. She wasn’t trying to ‘cock-block’ her son; but she knew that whatever he had going on in his devious mind couldn’t be anything useful. And, judging by the way that poor girl rocketed off of the table, nearly stumbling across Derek to achieve her goal, Fran figured she was right.

“I’m going to fix some bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast. Does that suit everybody here?”

“Y-yes ma’am.” Danielle nodded emphatically. Derek could not only tell the exact moment that Danielle had stopped breathing, but he could also tell when she decided to start again. And not only had the color   
come back to her face from before, but now it was a deep rosy blush to boot. He grinned in spite of himself. 

“Ma’am, I’m going to….I’ll be right back.”

Fran nodded, ‘Alright baby, but be quick. Breakfast won’t take long to fix.”

Danielle had already sprinted down the hall and locked Derek’s bedroom door. 

Once inside the room, Danielle leaned against the closed door and thanked God for ‘Ma’am’….she seemed to intervene just in the nick of time. Her nerves were still jangled from having a gun in her face to begin   
with. And then, Derek Morgan was so damned fine….she couldn’t think straight when she looked at him. Then, he would open his mouth and speak, and this great voice came falling out. Those damned mischievous eyes! And the rakish smile. What the hell was she doing here? 

Quickly she shrugged out of Derek’s shirt, suddenly feeling as though she might have been sending him some sort of bizarre signals that only he picked up on. Without the shirt all she had on would be her   
underwear; some boy-cuts, in purple. She needed a shower. Stripping down out of her bloomers, Danielle started a nice hot shower. While the water was getting to the right temperature to suit her she rifled   
through the side of the bathroom vanity that Derek had designated for her things, grabbing her matching coconut shampoo and conditioner…she had some lavender scented body wash and a lime green poofy   
thing that she used to wash up with. During her shower she did her best to forget the close call out in the living room…both of them. It wasn’t really working, but she could try. 

After her shower, she dried off quickly. Running back into the bedroom she went through the wardrobe that Derek was letting her borrow to house some of her more necessary clothes….she grabbed a decent pair   
of jeans, her favorite old faded bright green T-shirt…well it had been bright green once upon a time. Opening a drawer to the wardrobe, she grabbed a clean pair of underwear and a matching bra…..Garcia had   
struck, taking her shopping while Derek was out of town; lastly, as she got dressed, she pulled on a pair of socks to keep her little piggies warm. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
I think I figured out how I keep putting her on the spot. God, she’s so damned adorable when she’s confused.

Once the bedroom door had shut behind Danielle, Fran lit into Derek.

“What on Earth do you think you are doing?”

“Mama, calm down.”

“Don’t you ‘mama’ me; what were you thinking?”

“I heard the floor creek. Knee-jerk reaction was to pull my weapon as I sat up….I got a little too much agent in the blood even when I sleep, I guess. In my sleep induced haze I had no idea what was going on until I   
heard her screech in fear. That jolted me awake fully to see that I had my gun pointed almost right at her nose, with my hand wrapped up in the shirt collar making sure that whatever ‘UNSUB’ didn’t get away. I let   
her go….we started talking about what you were going to fix for breakfast. I couldn’t really help myself…she was so confused, and it was cute as hell. Never mind how adorable it was that her feet barely touched   
the floor at all sitting on the coffee table. She kept saying that it was my fault she was always confused and that I kept putting her on the spot. I merely wanted to know what she was talking about.”

“Don’t even give me that. You knew exactly what you were doing.” Derek had the good sense to at least look like a scolded puppy. “Derek, you’re my son, and I love you dearly. But you’ve got to understand that you   
are an insanely handsome man…You’re welcome for that by the way….But sometimes that can be an overwhelming thing for a woman to face down. Especially a woman that is not used to so much attention being   
leveled on her.” 

“Well, thank you mama. I know how intimidating it can be. I’ve met a few absolutely gorgeous women in my day that left me speechless. But if I want to make her stay with me….If I want to make her never want to   
leave…I have to give her a reason.”

“Yes, well…Just be sure that you don’t try so hard that you push her in the opposite direction while you’re going through all of this effort. After breakfast you should try to see if there’s anything she wants to do   
today.”

“I should probably see if we can go get her dogs from the house. We managed to get her clothes; I want to get the dogs for her so she doesn’t have to worry about them anymore. And speaking of which…”

“Penelope said she’d bring Clooney home later today…probably…if she’s done spoiling him.” 

Both of them looked up from their conversation when they heard the bedroom door open finally. Derek watched as Danielle came forward. She was only dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt; but the way those   
jeans rode the curve of that ass…..Derek’s mouth went dry…completely. And the T-shirt was going to kill him if the jeans didn’t. He didn’t dare look over to his mother who would likely be wearing her ‘I told you so’   
face.

“Sorry, I haven’t started on breakfast yet….”

“No, ma’am….you had to catch up…he’s been gone a long time. Can I help?”

Fran’s first instinct was to tell the girl ‘no’…to make her settle on the sofa and wait….but she knew the girl was a powder keg of energy and just wanted to help so bad….

“Come on baby, let’s go. You can work on cutting up some fruit if you want to.” 

Danielle nodded in the affirmative and set about cutting up a few oranges and bananas; there were even a few pears there that she started working on. She looked at the pineapple with a questioning glance and   
decided that, no, she wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to tackle that today. 

“I can cut that up if you want to have some of it.”

The sound of Derek’s voice being so close startled her. She jerked the knife where she had been cutting the last pear she wanted to use, slicing into her hand a bit.

“Ow!” she pulled her hand away tucking it close to herself as she did. Again, Derek saw the color drain from her face, and she became a bit unsteady on her feet

Derek immediately grabbed her by the shoulders and started steering her towards a chair. She wasn’t going to make it those few feet even with help; she began to black out. Derek scooped her up much like he had   
the night before and carried her the rest of the way to the chair, setting her down. 

“Mama, first aid kit is in the bath…” Derek turned to see that his mom had already dashed to the bathroom to grab his first aid kit. “Come on girl, let’s get this washed off so I can disinfect it.” 

“Derek, she won’t be able to stand. Hang on.” His mother set his first aid kit on the kitchen table and turned to find a medium sized metal mixing bowl. Running some rather warm water in it, she sat it on the table   
close to the first aid kit. “This will have to do for now. Just rinse it off; I’ll get the antiseptic ready.”

It really paid off to have a mother that was a nurse; there wasn’t much that flustered his mother. Danielle on the other hand…perhaps his mother had been right. Maybe he was laying it on a little thick. 

After applying the antiseptic to the cut, his mom helped him to properly apply the bandage to Danielle’s hand. “Ok baby. It’s all covered up now. You shouldn’t need stitches; the cut didn’t look that deep.”

Danielle only nodded; she was still trying to get her insides to keep up with the program. 

“Danielle, we have the next few days off from work. I thought maybe Hotch and some of the others could help me and we would go get your dogs.”

“Kissy and Bailey!” 

“Yes. And I think Hotch and Rossi are stopping by that storage locker to get some of your stuff.”

Danielle started wiping at her eyes even before the tears had time to make tracks down her cheeks. A nearly silent ‘Thank You’ was the only thing she could manage to say at the time. 

After her cut had been bandaged and they had eaten their breakfast, Danielle asked if she could borrow Derek’s phone, she wanted him to call Agent Hotchner. Derek did, and waited for Hotch to answer.

“Hotchner.”

“Hey man, I’ve got someone that wants to talk to you for a second.”

“Alright, put them on.” Hotch waited patiently, smiling a little figuring out just who Morgan was talking about.

“Agent Hotchner….’Danielle spoke so carefully.

“Yes, Danielle?”

“You’re really going to go and get some of my things; you and Agent Rossi?”

“Yes we are. Matter of fact I will be leaving to pick him up in just a few minutes.”

“Agent Hotchner?”

“Danielle?”

“Th-thank you. And thank Agent Rossi for me.”

“It’s no trouble at all, we’d do it for you any time.”

After a few more ‘thank you’s’ and Hotch assuring her again that it all was alright, they ended the call. 

“Feel better?” Derek asked with a smile on his face.

Danielle nodded in the affirmative. 

“I thought that, after we bring your dogs back, we could call Reid and have him bring by some of his books for you to borrow.”

“Do you think he’d be OK with that?”

“Of course.” 

“Well, OK then…I have to go brush my teeth and get some shoes on, and I’ll be ready.”

“I don’t know if it is a good idea for you to go or not.”

“The dogs won’t come to you otherwise and, if they did, you’d better run. I have to go.”

“Ok, well, stay close to me; if he’s there I….”

“Don’t worry; he won’t be there at this time of day.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I was married to him for over 10 years; I think I know his routine. What time is it?” 

“A little after nine.” 

“Alright then, he’s already clocked in for his shift; he’ll be on until nearly 8pm. The only thing that we might have to worry about is if one of his ‘brothers’ makes a ride through the neighborhood. That’s not likely to   
happen until after lunch sometime.”

Derek raised an eyebrow at her. 

“I know all of the tricks he would pull.” 

“Alright, let’s go then.”

“We might want to pick up a couple bags of food. You said you have a German Shepard?’ Seeing him nod, “And I have two small horses….you’re going to need some extra kibble for sure. Ooh! And they will need   
new toys. I haven’t been able to get them any new ones in a while.”

“What do you get for a pony as a chew toy?”

“Chihuahuas?”

Derek laughed at the little joke she made. The sound of Derek laughing made her giggle a little as they walked out of the door. Fran smiled to herself as they left. Derek was about to get a run for his money if the   
girl was able to keep making progress.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Twenty-five minutes later, Derek and Danielle had pulled up to the house that she had shared with her husband. Derek raced around to the passenger side of his SUV to open her door, noticing that she had started shaking quite a bit. 

 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” 

“Yes, I have to do this. I’m not leaving my dogs behind for him to torture while I’m gone.”

“Give me the key.”   
Danielle just looked at him for a second and Derek realized she most likely didn’t even have a key to the house.

 

“He never gave me one. I was always locked inside the house. I didn’t need one.”

“That’s ok; I think I might have a key.” 

Danielle looked at his foot, ‘Sure you do.”

“You’ve been talking to Garcia.” 

“Not that much….’ The tone of Danielle’s voice indicated that she was merely trying to placate Derek; Garcia had probably been showing her the photo-shopped pictures she had hidden. 

Danielle had turned and was making her way up the walkway, Derek following close behind, once they got to the door, he made her stand behind him as he ‘unlocked’ the door.

Once inside they could hear the dogs going ape shit behind the door of a room where they had been closed off.

“Hang on, I’ll calm them down so they won’t run you over.”

She walked through the room; Derek was looking around. It looked like a bomb had dropped on the house; and yet, she walked through there like it was business as usual. 

Before she opened the door to the spare bedroom she knocked gently on the door three times and called out to the two large dogs to let them hear her voice, this calmed them immediately. Opening the door the   
two large dogs bounded out, knocking her down in their excitement, licking all over her face. 

Derek stepped forward to try to help her up. The dogs stopped washing her face long enough to give him a glare. 

“Bailey! Kissy! Behave. That is no way to treat a friend. Let me up.”

Not taking their eyes off of Derek for one moment, the two dogs grabbed her by the front of her shirt to help her sit up. Derek stepped forward and carefully offered her his hand. The dogs kept watching him   
carefully but had stepped a pace or two back to give him room. 

“Girls, his name is Derek. Say hello.” 

Bailey begrudgingly held up a paw for him to reach out and shake. 

After watching Bailey shake paws with Derek, ‘Kissy…..”

Kissy huffed in disapproval before handing him her paw. Derek had to fight laughing at their behavior. They were as bad as two children. After it seemed as though the dogs had calmed down considerably and had   
come to understand that Derek was good people, Derek and Danielle started to make their way back to the SUV with the dogs. Once they got outside though, they spotted Dingle, Lonnie’s Rottweiler, in his kennel;   
he was whimpering and acting all forlorn over the idea that he might get left. Danielle went running to the back yard and went over to the fence; the dog sat patiently and waited for her, licking her fingers through   
the chain link. Danielle looked back at Derek with that look on her face…

“Do you have any bolt cutters in the garage? I can pop the lock on that and he can come, too.”

“I think that there are. Come with me.” They went back through the war zone and into the garage through the entrance off of the kitchen. Opening a couple of storage lockers in the garage she finally came across the one that had what they were looking for; before closing the door, she grabbed a few dog leashes that she found. Lonnie must have used them to take the dogs on walks….

After cutting the lock off of the kennel, they opened the door and let the huge dog out. He was really grateful for their help it seemed.

“Will you behave for me?” The dog flipped over on his back showing off his chest and belly, letting her pet him. “Ok, come on you big moose.”

“I thought you said he was a mean dog.”

“Sometimes he is, but only when Lonnie makes him that way. I’ve been working with him a little though….the last year or so, Lonnie’s been having trouble getting him as fired up as he used to. That’s why he’s been   
making Dingle stay outside more often. Dingle’s an old softy, huh?”

The two Irish Wolfhounds were sitting in the boot of the SUV and Dingle was sitting in the back seat, with his chin resting on Danielle’s shoulder, his eyes sliding shut as if he was finally relaxed at the idea of not   
being trapped in that house anymore. 

By the time they arrived at the pet store, Dingle was so relaxed and asleep, he was practically drooling over Danielle’s shoulder….Kissy and Bailey had settled down in the very back and were resting as well. When   
Derek put the car in park, there was a slight vibration of the vehicle turning off and the dogs snapped awake; Dingle was smacking his jaws, trying to wake up. 

“Ew! I know I should be mad about this, but he’s so cute I can’t be mad at him forever.” Derek shook his head. She was a pushover with four legged creatures. Clooney was never going to be obedient for him again;   
between Danielle and Garcia, Morgan would get overruled a lot.

Danielle instructed Dingle to get into the back with Kissy and Bailey, which he did. After Derek helped her with her car door, she made her way around to the rear of the vehicle and started clipping the leashes to the   
dogs; Derek began helping her get them out of the truck. They decided to take them into the pet store with them to see how they socialized with other people and animals. Derek walked Dingle; he figured he could keep a dog that strong under better control than she could. Since Irish Wolfhounds are known for having a better temperament under most circumstances he didn’t mind letting her walk them. Derek grabbed a flat   
cart, he figured with having to get such large bags of dog food, he didn’t want to mess with a regular shopping buggy; before going more than a foot or two with the cart, Dingle jumped up onto it and laid down as if he owned the place.

They walked around for a little while, stopping to ask a clerk what toys would be good for dogs their sizes, especially for one like Dingle. They got help loading some of the dog food onto the cart. At that point,   
Derek let Danielle take over control of Dingle as well as already having Kissy and Bailey…he couldn’t steer the cart and deal with the dog, too. 

After loading the cart down with the dog food, toys, dog bed, brushes, and other accessories that they thought they might need to get started comfortably they made their way back out to the SUV. While they were   
loading it all into the boot, Danielle stood there with the dogs still on their leashes, talking to Derek since he wouldn’t let her help load anything. 

Dingle whirled around growling at someone that had come too close to them. Danielle turned to try to get him to calm down, seeing that it was a cop that she had seen before out at the house, doing one of those   
checks she had told Derek about. Derek sensed her tense up.

Flashing his badge quickly, ‘Can I help you?”

“No sir, I just thought you looked like somebody I used to know.” 

“I have that kind of face. Now if you don’t mind, keep moving.” Derek stood there in his offensive stance. If this guy had made one wrong move, Danielle wasn’t sure who would attack first, Derek or Dingle. The man   
walked away but not without giving Danielle the once-over, making her skin crawl. 

“Derek, can we go now?” 

“Yeah, come on.” He helped her get the dogs loaded into the back seat; it was almost comical to watch the three behemoths pile into the back seat of the car…all Derek could see when he looked out of the rear view mirror was dog head. 

Approximately thirty minutes after leaving the pet store, Derek pulled up in front of his apartment building. Danielle grabbed him by the arm, preventing him from getting out of the car.

“What’s wrong doll?”

She must have been a little upset, she didn’t eve hesitate over the nickname.

“That cop car. That’s….that’s Lonnie’s car.” 

Derek didn’t even need to ask if she was sure, he knew she would know her own husband’s squad car. Before getting out of his SUV, Derek put a call into Garcia, and let her know what the number of Lonnie’s squad   
car was to see if there was any way to put a trace on it at all. Next, he called Hotch and informed him that Lonnie had figured out where he lived and was in the apartment building now, and that his mother was at   
his place alone since he had gone out with Danielle. Then, Derek made the decision to go ahead and try to get everybody up to the apartment. He could come back for the dog supplies later, but he wanted to get   
everyone in the apartment as quickly as possible. Luckily, Derek and Danielle didn’t happen to pass Lonnie in the hallway as they made their way to the apartment. The dogs were rather cooperative, which was a   
miracle.

“Derek, baby, your back early.”

“Yeah, we wanted to go ahead and get the dogs all home and settled before Pen brings Clooney by later. I have to go down to the truck to get their supplies and food later.” 

“What’s going on baby?”

Derek watched Danielle walk back to his room with the dogs in tow.

“When we pulled up we saw a cop car outside…..Danielle says it’s Lonnie’s car.”

“Oh dear.” Fran was at a loss for what to say. 

There was a knock at the door; Derek and his mom looked at each other and Fran made it clear to him that she was going to the bedroom with Danielle to sit with her. Derek actually liked that idea….he wasn’t   
expecting anyone except Hotch and, maybe Rossi, so having his mom out of sight until he figured out what was going on was perfect by him. 

After seeing that his mom was safely out of sight, Derek opened the door, keeping the chain lock latched. Sure enough there was a cop standing on the other side.

“Yes officer? How can I help you?”

“I’m Officer Blanchard; apparently there have been a rash of break-ins locally. I’m going around to as many people on my route as I can and making them aware so they can take extra precautions.”

“Well thank you Officer Blanchard.’ Derek flashed his badge, ‘But I think I have this under control. Now if that is all, I really must get going. I’m late for an appointment.”

“That’s quite alright. You have a good day Agent Morgan.” Lonnie smiled cordially at Morgan and turned to leave. Something about the encounter left chills running up and down Morgan’s back. This man was dangerous if provoked. After Lonnie had turned to leave, Morgan shut and locked the door arming the alarm system, then, he ran over to the window in the living room that overlooked the street to make sure the   
car pulled away. After making sure the coast was clear, Derek went to check on his mom and Danielle. Danielle was curled up on the bed, her head resting on his mom’s chest…his mom had her arms wrapped around Danielle’s shoulders; the dogs had decided the bed was their territory as well. This was going to be tricky later. He could hear Danielle mumbling some nonsense about having to go somewhere else. 

“You’re not going anywhere.” Derek’s voice made her jump slightly. He was glad his mom was holding on to her.

“I can’t stay here. He’ll keep coming back. What if he comes after your mom?”

“I’m a big girl, Danielle….”

Almost ignoring Fran altogether, looking straight at Derek, ‘I have lost both parents; you still have one left….”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Agent Morgan….he will come back. What happens if you’re not here? He could come after her. I’m leaving. If I’m not here maybe he will leave her alone.”

“I’m in the room.” Fran was getting agitated.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’m leaving. I can’t let Lonnie come after you.” 

“I am an adult, so is my son. If he says you stay, then you stay.”

“We can’t even count on the cops to help us, you know this.” Danielle shot at Derek between clenched teeth.

“You’re staying. It’s safer for you here than being God knows where by yourself.” 

Danielle went to argue, but saw the twin arched eyebrow from both mother and son; she stamped her foot, regretting it as she did it. Although she had recovered quite substantially from her physical injuries,   
places like her ankles were still a little tender. 

“Damn it!”

“That’ll teach you to throw a tantrum.” Derek chided. Danielle shot him the bird and walked back into the living room. When Derek and his mother followed her into the living room they almost laughed. Danielle was   
sitting on the sofa, flanked on either side by the Irish Wolfhounds; Dingle, the Rottweiler was sitting sprawled out across her, his head in her lap as she stroked his face. She had clicked on the TV, they were watching a show on Animal Planet called ‘Bad Dog’, and she was explaining to them that they were to refrain from acting like this while they stayed with Agent Morgan.

“That means you Kissy, no getting on the cabinets.” 

Sitting down, Derek and Fran watched as the giant dog lowered her head a little in disgrace, whining as if to protest being ratted out. Danielle started scratching Dingle’s belly and he started kicking his leg, as if it   
tickled. 

Thinking of a safe topic, Derek asked Danielle knew what she might want to order for dinner.

“I don’t know.” She looked like she was thinking hard about it. 

“What’s your favorite food?” Fran asked.

“I don’t really know. At home I only fixed whatever Lonnie said he wanted for dinner. If I didn’t make what he wanted it started another fight.” 

“Hmmm…” Derek began to think. “Do you like spicy foods?” 

“Maybe a little but, not very much spicy.” 

“Asian, Mexican, Italian….”

Danielle shrugged her shoulders; she had no real clue what she might like.

Derek thought about how sad that was; Danielle was a grown woman nearing 40 and she had lived under Lonnie’s thumb so long that she had totally forgotten anything about what she wanted or liked. 

“Ok. Well I know a nice Asian fusion place that delivers. We can try that and if you don’t like it after that we can try something else the next time until we find something you do like.”

“Alright; that sounds ok.” 

Derek called the restaurant, which knew him by name; he ordered pot stickers for an appetizer for everyone. He asked for two orders of Bangkok Chicken for Fran and himself. And then he ordered Malaysian Beef   
Rendang for Danielle, telling them to go light on the curry sauce. 

The three of them sat and watched TV until the doorbell rang and Derek had to go pay for the food; it was the same guy that always delivered when he called that place. Derek made a little small talk, giving the   
young man a nice tip, and agreeing that one day soon he’d bring his mother into the restaurant to meet the young man’s mother. Apparently the older Asian lady was smitten with Derek; he always tried to be very   
polite with her, his mom tried to raise him right, and the old lady wanted to meet his mother and congratulate her on having such a good son. 

Fran helped Derek carry the bags of food into the kitchen to get them sorted as well as getting the dishes and utensils together. A few minutes later they were all eating. Danielle had moved to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table, resting her plate on the table top. Derek had grabbed a soda for Fran and himself and a bottle of water for Danielle; caffeine in sodas would be bad for the baby, and he had found out in short order just after she came to stay with him that the smell of beer and alcohol made her queasy. The three mammoth dogs had gotten down onto the floor to watch Danielle eat; at one point she turned her head to speak to Fran and came nose to nose with Bailey.

“Really? You have food in the bowls we just bought you.”

The over-grown puppy whipped out her tongue and licked a stripe up Danielle’s nose. 

“Beat it. You’re cute, but not that cute.” The dog didn’t move far, just rested its head on one of Danielle’s shoulders, continuing to watch her eat. 

Hearing Fran and Derek chuckle, ‘I promise I didn’t raise them this way. Normally, they know better. I think they believe that since they are around new people they can misbehave.”

Dingle was content to have his head resting on Danielle’s left thigh, rolled over on one side, sleeping. 

“That’s some guard dog you have there,’ Derek snickered pointing at Dingle. 

“I told you, except for when Lonnie riles him up, he’s usually quite harmless.”

“How do you like the Rendang?” Derek wanted to know if he had chosen well enough.

“Oh my God it’s good. And the pot stickers were awesome. I think next time you get this, it would be OK to have a little more curry in it, maybe…”

Fran and Derek watched her eat until they thought she would pop. Fran got a good laugh out of it when Derek handed Danielle a set of chop sticks. Danielle tried valiantly for several minutes to use them properly,   
and failing miserably. Then, she got frustrated and just used them to stab at her food, grinning over the fact that she had turned it into shish kabobs. Derek just shook his head, muttering that she was as hopeless as Reid when it came to chop sticks. But Fran could not help laughing at the girl’s ingenuity; she wasn’t going to be defeated by a stick. By the time the meal had started winding down, Danielle was staring at the food that was left on her plate in earnest. 

“What’s wrong baby?”

Danielle looked up at Fran, ‘Ma’am, I just can’t eat anymore.” It was nearly an exclamation. 

“Well we can put it away and save it for lunch tomorrow or something.” Derek smiled at the fact that the girl had finally hit the full mark; she had packed away food like a pro.

Derek and his mother had gone to straighten out the left-overs and clean the kitchen up, leaving Danielle to watch TV a little longer; she was still sitting in the floor with the dogs. When he and his mother had come back into the living room, the smiled at what they saw. Dingle had rolled over onto his stomach, Danielle had rested her head on his back, and was lying on her side, and either one of the Wolfhounds were on both sides of her, leaving her sandwiched between them.

“It seems as though you might have some help looking after her now.” Fran commented to Derek.

“Yeah, and it will be even more like this when Garcia brings Clooney back….speak of the devil.” Derek’s phone started ringing. Checking the caller ID he sees that it is indeed Garcia.

“Yeah Baby Girl?” 

“I thought I’d let you know that I was going to bring Clooney on by. I had him out at the park earlier, so he’s had his play time, and he’s had his dinner….He misses you I think.”

“You could get a dog you know.”

“The building doesn’t allow it. I barely got it cleared for me to baby sit him for you when you go out of town on cases.” 

“Well, we’ll be waiting for you. Text me when you get here so I can be ready for you. We brought Danielle’s three dogs over earlier today and she’s asleep. I don’t want them raising all kinds of hell waking her up   
right away.”

“You got it sweet cheeks; Garcia over and out.”

Derek knew it would only be about fifteen minutes before she showed up so he made his way over to Danielle to pick her up and put her on the couch; he would have put her in the bed, but he figured that once   
Garcia got there with Clooney and the dogs all got excited that sleeping would be out of the question. Fran mentioned to Derek that Danielle had met Clooney a couple times while he was out of town; Garcia had   
brought him by to see Fran and the new person and to be around his own stuff. According to his mother, Danielle and Clooney got along famously; Danielle adored the loveable German Shepard. 

Right on time, fifteen minutes later, Derek received a text from Garcia letting him know that she was coming up the sidewalk with Clooney. Derek went ahead and opened the door a few moments after that so all   
they would have to do was walk in. 

Of course once Garcia came in with Clooney, the three mastodons that Danielle had brought with her snapped to attention and started their warning growls. The noise caused Danielle to wake up, groggily and look   
around. 

Seeing Garcia and Clooney, she began getting her dogs under control, making them sit and stop growling at Clooney; even Dingle began minding his manners. Once the dogs had sniffed each other and Danielle’s   
dogs realized that this new dog smelled like this house, they seemed to understand that Clooney belonged there, it seemed as though they all calmed down considerably. 

Garcia was talking to Derek about the trace that she had managed to work out for Lonnie’s car so she would be alerted at any time that he came near the apartment again; she was also talking about how she would   
ideally like to be able to work out how to trace his personal vehicles as well, and maybe put a lojack on the girl. Danielle had started playing with the dogs, getting them used to each other. Next thing everybody   
heard was a loud hiccup; looking around they all looked at Danielle who had apparently gained a case of the blasted things. She kept trying to explain that ‘maybe she ate too much’…but the hiccups wouldn’t let   
her get a word out. Derek shook his head and laughed.

“What happened?” Garcia asked in good humor.

“We ordered from that Asian fusion place in town. Danielle wasn’t sure what kind of food she liked best; I got her some Malaysian Beef Rendang…she gave it her best shot eating all of it.”

“Little wonder that you have killer hiccups.”

“It…It…It….Damned hic…hiccups…” her struggle only served to make the other three laugh so hard.

“She seems to like what she had tonight,’ Fran tried to fill in for Danielle.

“It…It….Itwasreallygood…” she blurted out trying to dodge the hiccups. 

“Let’s go get you some water,’ Fran offered to the girl. 

As soon as Fran and the girl were out of the room, Garcia turned to Derek.

“I have started tracking Lonnie’s financial transactions…anytime he uses a credit card or makes a deposit or withdrawal from the bank, I will know about it. I have also started looking up any possible internet   
activity. I will be watching him as closely as I can.” 

“Thanks Baby Girl. His visit earlier has her worried about staying here…she’s afraid that he might do something stupid when I’m gone on a case, and that mama might get hurt. She started talking about leaving   
earlier….I began talking about her favorite foods and what we should try for dinner to distract her.”

“All that and brains, too.” 

Garcia began to get ready to leave after staying a few more minutes to speak with Derek and his mother as well as making plans with Danielle for a girl’s day out soon. 

“Baby Girl, I’ve been thinking…”

“Uh-oh, here we go. Yes love bug?”

“Maybe you should stay here, at least just for the night. Lonnie has already been past here. With him on the loose I don’t like the idea of you going home alone.”

“I don’t know Derek….”

“I have that third bedroom and it’s furnished.”

“I’ll have to go down and get my go-bag out of my trunk.”

“No! I mean, it can wait until morning. There is still one of your old go-bags in the closet with some pajamas and a toothbrush, all of those sorts of things like that. I just don’t feel good about things right now.”

Garcia looked at Derek, really looked at him, and knew that he was very worried about the way things were going currently.

“Alright baby, I’ll stay.”

“Thank you baby.” Derek’s phone started ringing; checking the ID he saw that it was Hotch.

“Yeah Hotch?”

“Rossi and I will come out there tomorrow afternoon, just before lunch. I took Jack to the park today to spend a little time with him after being gone so long. Rossi was working on parts of his latest book. And we   
didn’t get out to the storage unit until a little later.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“We may have had company out there; someone a few units down. They got there shortly after us. And we noticed they weren’t really doing all that much work. Rossi took a couple pictures of them with his phone,   
as did I, when we were loading some of Danielle’s boxes into the SUV. We can have Garcia run some facial recognition software tomorrow if needs be. Speaking of which, we should probably have someone staying   
with her in case we are being followed.”

“Don’t worry about that Hotch. She’s here with us. When Danielle and I were out shopping for the dogs, a guy approached us saying he thought he knew us, but then acted like he wasn’t sure…I bluffed him off so he’d go away. Then when we got here, Lonnie’s police cruiser was out front. Hotch, he came by the apartment; luckily I was here and mom was in the other room with Danielle…she was pretty shaken up about him 

being here. I didn’t let him in, matter of fact I told him he had to leave. Then Garcia came by here to drop off Clooney; something in my gut has been bothering me ever since I saw Lonnie on the other side of my   
door, so I told her to stay here tonight and we could work on further arrangements later.”

“Good call. I’ll call JJ, Reid, and Emily and make sure they know not to go somewhere alone.” 

“Alright, well, I’m going to hop off here; I think me and the ladies are going to watch a movie before bed to try to calm our nerves a bit. Tell Jack goodnight for us.” 

‘And tell him Aunty Pen misses him,’ Hotch could hear from the back ground. 

Laughing he promised he would do all of those things. 

All across Quantico the agents of the BAU were settling down for the night, with the exception of Reid who had decided to walk the three blocks to Prentiss’ apartment. He didn’t feel like calling a cab and quite   
honestly he thought that he was leaving early enough that it would be safe to take that walk. He never saw the man jump out from the shadows and place a rag soaked in chloroform over his nose and mouth and   
drag him down the alley and shove him into the trunk of the car, hog-tying him before the lid was shut.


	7. What No One Knew: Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danielle goes on a bit of a rescue mission of her own.

“Morgan.” Derek answered his phone two hours later.

“Have you heard from Reid?” Emily asked worried that her friend hadn’t arrived yet.

“Not since the phone calls earlier to make the plans for everybody to stay together. What’s wrong?”

“He called me before he left his place, saying that he was going to walk over here; Derek, that was two hours ago. I tried to reason that maybe he had stopped for a coffee or something. But it doesn’t usually take   
him this long.” Emily was getting more upset at the thought of something happening to Reid. Ever since that damned case in Georgia….

“Alright. Call Hotch and let him know what’s going on. I’ll let Garcia know, she can see if she can track his phone from her laptop.” 

Even though he couldn’t see her through the phone, Emily nodded, ‘Right. Let me know what you come up with.”   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
“Baby Girl, can you help me make some snacks for the movies we’re about to watch.”

“I can hel….” Danielle started to say, but stopped when she saw the look on Derek’s face. “Or not.”

“You sit right there and relax. You’ve been doing too much moving around lately, and it’s starting to tell on you.” 

Danielle did her best to glare at him, but he simply arched an eyebrow at her and it made her laugh. 

**Once in the kitchen….**

“Hot Stuff, what’s wrong?” 

“That was Emily on the phone, Reid still hasn’t made it to her place, and she’s been waiting on him for two hours….”

“You want me to track our little genius’ phone don’t you?” 

“If you ca…”

“Don’t you dare finish that statement; just give me a moment to get into the program….”

“Thanks Baby Girl.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Garcia went back into the living room carrying a huge bowl of popcorn with a bag of dill pickle chips under her arm. After tossing the bag of chips over to Danielle, Garcia sat down, grabbing her laptop. It only took   
her a matter of a minute or two before she had opened the tracking program that she needed. She was able to lock on Reid’s phone rather quickly. 

“Hmmm….’ Garcia wondered to herself. 

Derek was still in the kitchen getting the drinks ready to bring in on a tray, so he hadn’t seen the look on Garcia’s face yet. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Coming back into the living room, setting the tray of drinks on the table, Derek saw Garcia’s face as she studied her computer screen; she looked a little upset, maybe confused. 

Going over to the love seat where Pen was sitting, he flopped down, ‘What’d you find baby girl? Any good movies playing tomorrow that we might be able to go see?” He was trying to keep his tone of voice normal   
so Danielle wouldn’t be able to pick up on the fact that something was wrong. 

“See for yourself,’ she tilted the laptop to the point where Morgan could see what was going on. “See, there. It doesn’t look promising.” Garcia pointed to the area on the screen in question. Morgan saw that the tracking program showed that Reid’s phone was showing up on the route he would have taken to get to Prentiss’ apartment. 

Derek didn’t know what to do. He grabbed his phone and went into the bathroom. 

“Hotchner.”

“Hotch, Prentiss called me a few minutes ago, she said that Reid hadn’t reached her apartment and she had been waiting for him nearly two hours. She said she was giving him a little extra time in case he had   
stopped for coffee, but that even with the caffeine pit-stop he should have been at her place a long time ago. I had Pen run a trace on his phone from her laptop; it shows that the phone is still located somewhere on the route he would have had to take to get to Prentiss’.” 

“Damn. Alright. Rossi and I will come and get you, then we will ride out there to see what’s going on.”

“What about Jack? It’s too late to try to take him to Jessica’s.”

“We will bring him to your place. You don’t think that your mom and Garcia would mind watching him for a bit would you?”

“No it should be fine. And, anyway, he loves Pen to death.” 

“Alright. We’ll be there in about 15 minutes.”

“Good. I’ll be ready.”

Derek went back into the living room and waited for Hotch and Rossi to show up, he watched a little of the movie that the three women had picked out. He and Garcia kept giving each other looks across the room to each other. They were trying to convey messages to each other without saying a word about what was really happening. 

Precisely 15 minutes later, Hotch knocked on Morgan’s door; Rossi was standing a little to the right, and Jack was in front, with a backpack on his back with some pajamas and a change of clothes and a couple of toys. 

“Sorry to bust up your little movie night. But when Jack heard that his Aunt Penelope was over here, he decided that he just had to spend the night.” 

Danielle sat up from where she had been lounging on the couch with Derek’s mom; her dog Dingle had curled up against Danielle’s leg and sat up to see what all of the fuss was about. Smacking his lips, the dog   
laid back down. 

“Agent Hotchner…Agent Rossi? Is everything alright?”

“Yes. My son heard me mention that Pen was staying here; and she sort of like an aunt to him….he decided that it had been long enough since he’d seen her….he wanted to come over and stay with her tonight.”

“Oh….”

“Jack this is our friend Danielle.” 

“Hi! Do you know my daddy through his work?”

“Well sort of, I guess.”

“M’kay. You wanna play with some of my Transformers?” 

“Jack, I don’t know…”

“No, it’s cool. I haven’t played with Transformers since I was a kid.” 

“They had ‘em when you were a kid?”

“How old do you think I am?” 

Jack giggled and the two of them ran over and sat in the floor near the dining table as Jack started scattering some of his toys on the floor. 

Watching as Jack and Danielle got settled playing on the floor rather quickly, Hotch turned to Morgan…

“Come on Morgan, we are at least two hours behind.” 

Rossi, Morgan, and Hotch made their way out of the apartment. Fran had seen them out, then shut and locked the door, making sure the alarm was set properly. From her vantage point, Danielle had managed to   
see what buttons had been pushed, what numbers had been entered…as she went back to playing with Jack for a bit, she couldn’t help but wonder why Morgan had left with the others. Danielle thought back to the   
earlier conversations that he had been having with Garcia. Come to think of it, some of the communication seemed sort of contrived; like each of them were trying to think of what careful words to say. Whatever the situation, Danielle put it out of her head for the moment and continued to play with Jack and his toys.

Danielle had almost forgotten altogether about what had gone down, she’d been having such a good time playing with Jack; he was a really sweet little boy, and smart as a whip…but that could be because he took after his father, or at least she would assume so. What brought her curiosity to the forefront again was when Garcia’s cell phone rang. It must have been Derek. While showing Jack something on his ‘Ipad’ she kept an ear open to hear what was being said. 

Danielle had helped Jack look up old ‘Thundercats’ cartoons so she could show him what they were like; he was loving it. While she was going through some of the cartoons on ‘Youtube’, Danielle happened to overhear some of Garcia’s conversation.

“I’m telling you Derek, you’re not even 50ft away from Reid’s phone. Keep going straight, it’s right in front of you practically….”

There was a bit of quiet on Garcia’s end of things, then Danielle heard her exclaim…

“Oh God, where do you think he might be?”

Danielle’s mind started whirling. Their friend Reid was missing. He had been so nice to her….She knew that Lonnie was behind this he had taken the young man. Oh no; what would he do to the boy? 

“Jack, excuse me, I need to go to the restroom. Will you be alright here watching cartoons for a bit?”

“Sure, go’head.” 

Danielle left Jack lying under the dining table where they had been cuddled up watching the ‘Thundercats’ cartoons. As she made her way to the edge of the hallway, she looked back at the boy and her decision was   
made. 

Lonnie wouldn’t stop going after these people until he got what he wanted. She went to the bathroom like she said she would. She took her time, washing her face when she was done, gathering her thoughts.   
Then she walked back up the hall to Derek’s master bedroom. She took the cell phone he had gotten her; it was just a little prepaid phone, he had gotten it for her to use in case of an emergency. He had gotten it   
after Garcia had helped him pick it out because it had a decent tracking device. She turned it to vibrate so the ringer wouldn’t be heard, but this way she could keep it on and Garcia could track it once they got on to   
what Danielle was doing. 

Danielle walked over to the dresser, saw a piece of paper and a pen lying there; she scribbled a note saying that it had to be this way, leaving it in the middle of the bed. Then she went over to the window that was   
just to the left of the bed, moving the night table a bit so she could squeeze past it. Opening the window she crawled out onto the fire escape and moved the night table back into place before shutting the window   
behind her. Before descending the fire escape she took one last look at the room that she had occupied for the last couple of weeks, thinking of ‘Ma’am’ and Derek; with those final thoughts she shook her head   
and made her way into the darkness of the Quantico night.


	8. What No One Knew: Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out that Danielle has a daughter. The team saves the day. Danielle and Morgan have a bit of a disagreement. Danielle grabs her kid and takes off. There is a clue as to their whereabouts in there....see if you can find the Easter egg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have most of chapter 9 written already, although I have never gotten around to finishing it or tweaking it to my liking thus far. Hopefully I will be able to remedy that soon enough. I think by going through some of my older works and posting them here, getting reacquainted with them, it has started to give me the drive to write again...I had lost it for a while in a bit of a depressive state I guess. Hopefully that is all over and clearing away and I will be back on track with the writing....I have loved doing it; it gave me something to do to get all these crazy ideas out of my head....

Once Danielle had made her way down the fire escape, she ambled down the street, making sure to stay out of sight in case Derek or any of his friends came looking for her. As she walked, limping slightly…dropping those last couple feet from the fire escape had jarred her ankle a little bit….she started to try to think of where Lonnie would have gone. She couldn’t believe it would be as simple as going back to the house. With him being a police officer, he would understand that would likely be the first place they would look for him. After wondering aimlessly for what seemed like forever, but in reality was only at most fifteen minutes, Danielle remembered Lonnie mentioning something about a friend of his having a partially furnished vacant apartment that he used as rental property sometimes. When the apartment wasn’t being used by renters, Lonnie and his other cop buddies would use it for poker nights…and a couple of them had used it to carry on affairs without their wives knowing about it. Leaning against the wall of a building close by, Danielle started to think…

“Where did he say it was?” 

As soon as the address came to her she reached in her pants pocket and pulled out the $50 that she had stolen from her house before she ran from Lonnie. Ever since she left, she had a habit of keeping it in her pocket wherever she went…never knowing when she might need to use it. Hailing a cab, she jumped in muttering the address and telling him to step on it. When they got close enough to the address to suit her she instructed the driver to stop and keep the change. The driver thanked her; that was actually quite a sizeable tip considering no further than he had gone. Once the driver had pulled away, Danielle looked up and down the street to make sure the coast was clear. When she was satisfied that she had not been followed she continued to make her way into the apartment building and up the stairs to the right floor. Next, she carefully made her way through the hall to the right numbered apartment. Leaning against the door she couldn’t hear much at all, it was sort of quiet; this worried her. Had she gotten the address wrong? Or worse; was that young man, Dr. Reid, already…? Danielle couldn’t stand the suspense any longer; picking the lock quickly she entered into the apartment.  
Reid was sitting tied to a chair, his face was quite bruised, and he looked as though he was slouching trying to keep pressure off of his ribs. She knew he had been beaten substantially; Lonnie didn’t like to waste time…that was one thing she had learned about him. 

When Reid heard a sound in the apartment he dared to look up from his position in the chair. He couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Getting you out. He only grabbed you because he’s angry at me. We have to get you out of here….”

“He’s going to be back soon, you have to leave.”

“No! This is my fault.” Danielle rummaged around in the kitchen until she found a knife that was suitable for cutting through the ropes that had Reid tied up. She began cutting his ankles loose, and then she cut the  
ropes around his wrists. Once he was free he continued to argue for her to come with him. They could hear heavy footsteps coming down the hall, stopping in front of the door to the apartment. Luckily she had the foresight to lock the door after she came in, so they would hear the key jiggle in the lock. Danielle and Reid both looked at the door.

“Come with me. Please.”

“No.” Danielle got up shoving Reid into the one bedroom that there was, telling him to go out by the fire escape and keep running, before shutting the bedroom door to buy him a few extra seconds. 

As soon as she shut the door she spun around and took up Reid’s former position in the chair and waited. Her heart was hammering a mile a minute. She knew what Lonnie was capable of. She shut her eyes and  
said a quick prayer. 

The door finally opened and there stood Lonnie, every last handsome, yet violent square inch of him. The more she thought about him, the more she came to realize what a dumb ‘kid’ she had been when they first  
met. 

“I see you’ve understood my message. This whole thing could have been avoided, that boy didn’t need to be hurt at all. All you had to do was what I told you to do.” He had started coming closer and closer to her.  
Danielle crouched in as tight a ball as she could in the chair hoping he would just make this quick.

Knowing what she was expecting, Lonnie turned back towards the door and bellowed, ‘Get in here! Now!” 

A tiny figure stepped into the room; she was the miniature version of Danielle. If the child was 3 ft. tall she was doing good, she couldn’t have been more than four years old, had long dark hair just like Danielle…it  
even hung in the large bouncy curls, only it was of a finer grain like the hair on young children often is. Her big brown eyes seemed even larger from being opened wide in fear. And the child was shaking slightly.  
She was watching her mother and father. 

Lonnie stepped closer to where Danielle was sitting, grabbing her by the throat and lifting her out of the chair with one hand. It was becoming harder for Danielle to breathe; she grabbed at Lonnie’s wrist and  
forearm with both hands trying to pry him loose and make him let go, but it was failing miserably. She tried swinging her feet, but he was holding her far enough away from him that she wasn’t able to make contact  
with anything important. 

Watching his wife struggle, a hateful grin on his face, ‘So, when were you going to tell me that WE had a daughter?”

“N…Never.” Was the only word that Danielle had enough time to get out between gritted teeth before she was thrown several feet across the room hitting against the closed bedroom door, that Reid was still  
standing on the other side of. He had been listening to find out all that he could about what was going on. When he heard her slam into the door, Reid turned and took off down the fire escape like she had told him  
to do. As he carefully dropped himself down to the ground from the fire escape, Reid felt all over to make sure he was ok to continue on his own. Patting himself down, he felt something in his pocket. He knew that  
Lonnie had taken his own cell phone and tossed it in a trash can that must have been close to where he was taken from. He was left to try to figure out how this one managed to get into his pocket. He knew that  
Danielle likely slipped it to him, but he wasn’t sure where she got it from. 

‘That hardly matters right now, make the call….’ Reid pressed the button that turned the phone on. Immediately he saw that it was apparently Danielle’s phone that Derek had gotten for her. 

Meanwhile, halfway across town, Derek, Hotch, and Rossi had made it back to Derek’s apartment. They had to return empty handed; they weren’t quitting, but they had definitely hit a speed bump. 

Suddenly, Derek’s cell phone started ringing. But….It was Danielle’s special ringtone. As he grasped his phone to answer it, he looked at his mom and his bosses, a puzzled look on his face.

“Danielle?”

“Derek….”

“Pretty Boy? What are you doing with Danielle’s phone?”

“Um….She gave it to me….”

“What do you mean? When did she do this?”

“Not more than 10, maybe 15 minutes ago.”

“She couldn’t have. She’s been here the whole time.”

“Are you sure about that? Because, I’m pretty sure she’s here right now getting the shit beat out of her again.”

There was a clattering as Derek dropped his phone and took off through the apartment looking for Danielle. Everyone had been under the impression that she had gone to the restroom and possibly to lie down for  
a bit of a nap. As he threw his bedroom door open, he noticed that she was nowhere to be found. Quickly scanning the room he found Danielle’s hastily scribbled note. 

Running back down the hallway, Derek began yelling for Hotch while Rossi had picked up Derek’s phone and started talking to Reid to get any information he could about where he was at.

“Rossi, I really have no clue; other than the fact that it’s a small apartment about 20 minutes away from you. Have Garcia track the phone…she helped Morgan pick it out.” 

Rossi turned to Penelope and gave her the order to try to track Danielle’s phone. 

“W-why?”

“Pen…” 

“On it.” 

“Hotch! Hotch!”

“Morgan?” 

“She’s gone. Danielle took off. She must have put it together that Reid had gone missing and she went to get him back. She left this note.”

“Garcia…” 

“I’m already tracking the phone sir. Reid was right. There’s an apartment building no more than a 20 minute drive from here.” Looking around as Derek grabbed his keys, telling her to send the address to his phone. “Though I’m sure Derek can cut that time in half.” 

“We’ll…”

“Sir, I’ll meet you at the hospital.” With that Hotch and Rossi were running out of the door to make sure that Derek didn’t peel out without them. They were really only going to make sure that Derek didn’t kill a man.  
As soon as Garcia had sent the address for the apartment complex to everyone’s phones she hopped up and got Jack ready; Momma Morgan was changing her clothes and making sure she had herself together.  
Within a few minutes the threesome left and made their way to the hospital to wait on the others to arrive. 

Sitting out in Garcia’s land yacht, Esther, Jack was watching a movie on the ‘Ipad’ that Garcia had brought along to keep him occupied. Meanwhile, in the front seat, Garcia and Momma Morgan were busy worrying  
about what was happening at the apartment complex as well as what would happen when they managed to get Danielle to the hospital. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the apartment complex, the black government SUV was coming to a screeching halt, rocking forward to a stop. Morgan jumped out from behind the driver’s seat; Hotch and Rossi were sorely tempted to kiss the ground. Hotch was pretty sure he saw Rossi make the sign of the cross. They ran ahead making their way to the front of the building; Reid was coming around the corner from the ally he had been hiding out in  
until they came up. They could tell he had been beaten and was limping slightly. 

 

“Reid…”

“Hotch, I’m ok. He hits like a girl. I just miscalculated a little on that drop from the fire escape, that’s all. But he’s still in there with her. I think there’s a child in there now too.”

“Are you sure Reid?” Morgan snapped out of his trance when he heard that.

“Yeah. After she stuck me in the spare room, I stayed there long enough to hear what I could. He yelled at somebody to come into the apartment after him. And then, he asked Danielle when she had planned on  
telling him that they had a daughter. She answered ‘Never’. And that is when he started going off on her. That kid is still in there…”

Before Reid could say more, Morgan was already racing up the stairs. 

“Hotch, it’s the sixth floor.” 

Rossi got on his phone to call an ambulance and the rest of the team. He would have called the local precinct…If he had trusted them. But this guy was one of their own and he had been allowed to get away with  
things for so long. And who’s to say that one of Lonnie’s friends wouldn’t take a shot at one of the agents?

As Rossi hung up his phone, he and Reid waited outside for the team and EMT’s to show up. Once everybody started arriving the agents ran into the building. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Lonnie had heard the SUV pulling up outside and stomped over to look out of the window. He knew it was only a matter of time before the agents made their way into the building. He made his way over to where  
Danielle was trying to ball up on the floor and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her up to her feet. Next, Lonnie walked over, dragging Danielle along behind him and grabbed the kid by the scruff of her shirt, and began walking out of the apartment. As he made his way down the hall, Lonnie changed his grip on Danielle; instead of dragging her by her hair, he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her slightly off of her feet. Lonnie had to struggle to make his way down the hall; Danielle was struggling the entire way, swinging her arms and legs…trying to grab onto door jambs. With his free hand he was dragging the kid along behind him. And the child was as bad as her mother. She kept putting what little she weighed into her feet, trying to slow her daddy down, getting yanked up off the floor and snatched around like a rag doll. Lonnie made his way to a stair case that led to the roof, dragging his estranged wife and daughter up said stairs against their wills.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hotch and his team began sweeping the floors of the building; getting to the sixth floor, there was a neighbor that dared to stick her head out of the door….when the agents heard the movement and turned to see where it came from they heard her soft voice call out “….apartment 613 B….but they have gone up those stairs…” the older lady pointed to a flight of stairs that was a few yards away, and saw the agents give a courtesy nod before she closed her door going back into her own apartment. 

The agents made a quick sweep of the apartment just to cover all their bases; they didn’t find anyone in it of course, but it did look like a tornado had blown through. Next they made their way up the stairs, seeing that they led to the rooftop….Derek began to get a sick feeling in his stomach. 

Once out on the roof, they each looked around to try to catch sight of Lonnie and Danielle. At first they could see nothing until they heard a little child’s voice call out.

“Daddy! You make my arm hurt!” 

Then there was a deep, male voice that swore out loud, yet recovering quickly….apparently the little girl had tried to get away by kicking Lonnie, or maybe even biting him, although it seems the effort was  
unsuccessful. 

The agents closed in on his exact location on the roof top. 

Lonnie was trying to maneuver both his wife and his daughter around and neither one of them were making it easy, it was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth.

“Lonnie Blanchard. This is the FBI. Put them down and drop any weapons that you might have.” Hotch’s stern voice rang out. 

With Lonnie temporarily distracted, the little girl bit down on her father’s arm as hard as she could causing him enough pain that he dropped her and she ran away. JJ saw this and held her arms out to the little girl,  
sweeping her up and away from the scene, taking her behind part of the duct work that sat atop the roof. 

“Let Danielle go!” Hotch ordered once more. 

“You want her come and get her,’ with that, Lonnie shoved Danielle over the side of the building, her scream piercing the air as multiple gun shots rang out. Lonnie’s body fell, landing partially on the edge of the  
roof, his head and shoulders hanging over that edge.

As soon as the gunfire ended, Morgan ran like the devil, getting to the edge of the roof and looking over; Danielle was hanging on, but only by one hand, and that hand was trapped under Lonnie’s body. 

“Get him off of me!” 

“Sweetheart, if we move him right now, you will fall…”

Rossi and Hotch ran over letting him know that there was a fire truck pulling up the street with an extension ladder that would help to retrieve her. 

“Hotch, they need to hurry up and get here, her grip on the edge isn’t that great, and if his body moves in the slightest before they reach her…”

“Look!” Rossi pointed to where the fire truck was parking up just below the building. The firemen aboard were going as fast as they could to get the ladder extended as far as necessary to reach the woman  
dangling precariously by one arm.

“Baby, grab on with you other hand, it might give you a little extra time.” Derek was trying to encourage Danielle.

She was terrified to move….but she carefully brought her other arm up and tried to grab onto the ledge she was currently clinging to. As she began to put weight on the arm, it suddenly dropped again, and she  
wailed in pain.

“I think it’s dislocated…I can’t hold on with it.”

Derek looked around at Hotch and Rossi.

“Derek….no….” Hotch was too late as Morgan got on one side of Lonnie’s dead body and leaned over the edge as far as he dared, grabbing on to Danielle’s good arm to try to alleviate some of the weight on it from  
gravity pulling her down. As soon as Hotch and Rossi saw the look on Derek’s face, they both began to grab for him to try to keep him from going over as well, which would only make the firemen’s jobs that much harder. 

Meanwhile, Emily was helping JJ see to the little girl who was struggling against JJ because she knew her mommy was in trouble. Reid was currently running down the stairs to try to find any emergency workers he  
could get to come to the roof and help out, directing them on where to go. 

The emergency workers got to the roof to remove Lonnie’s body, but were going to have to wait until the fire men could get a handle on Danielle dangling over the edge of the building; if they removed the body, it  
might cause her to lose her grip altogether. Meanwhile, blood from the gunshots to Lonnie’s sorry carcass was dripping down onto Danielle and she was trying to keep her head turned so it wouldn’t have a chance  
to get into her eyes; also, the blood was making the ledge of the building that she had grabbed slippery. 

“Derek, my hand is slipping…” She sounded terrified. The firemen finally had the ladder coming up close enough that they stood a good chance of reaching her without many complications. They had chosen to use the ‘tower’ ladder; it had a small basket that held the fireman that was at the top, and it offered enough room for him to get Danielle into the bucket and get her settled on her own two feet, offering a little more  
security than the typical turn-table ladder that you would normally see.

“I’m going to let you go…..”

“No!” she tried to use her injured arm to grab onto the ledge or Derek’s arm whichever one happened to be closest, until she felt the pain shoot through the arm. He heard her wail again.

“The fireman is right behind you and about to grab you….I have to let go.” He watched her try to turn her head as if to check behind her to see the fireman. Derek worried that she might move too much, slip and  
fall. 

“Don’t look down; keep your eyes on me.” 

“D-Derek.”

“He’s right behind you. Wait for him to grab you….”

Derek waited; the fireman got his arms around Danielle, nodding at Derek.

“You need to let go of the ledge Danielle.”

“No!” she tried to grip it the ledge even harder, even though her grip was weakening. The fireman had an arm securely around her waist, the other one trying to reach up to pry her away from the building, but  
Danielle was still terrified to let go.

“I need someone to get this body off of the ledge.” Derek began; the emergency workers came to move the body…although normally against regulations until the medical examiner arrived, under the circumstances, and Morgan’s death glare, they made an exception. Once Lonnie’s body was removed Derek began to carefully pry each of Danielle’s fingers loose from the ledge. She looked back at him like she couldn’t believe what he was doing; eyes were wide, fearing she was going to wind up a greasy spot on the pavement for sure. 

But…she…didn’t hit the pavement below. Once the fireman had her in the basket she grabbed to the rim of the basket and looked down for just a nano-second before slamming her eyes shut and turning her head. 

The fireman gave the signal for the bucket to be lowered. 

Once everybody knew she was safe, the other agents turned their attention to the little girl that had buried her face in JJ’s shoulder and was crying her eyes out because she thought her mommy was dead. The little girl was coughing from being choked by tears. 

“Let’s get her downstairs to Danielle and get them both checked out.” Rossi offered, helping JJ to her feet so she wouldn’t have to put the child down. Emily and Hotch watched for a moment as the emergency  
workers finished getting Lonnie scraped off of the roof before turning to follow the others back into the building and down the stairs. 

Derek had been the first down the stairs, no surprise, and saw the fireman setting Danielle down in the back of the ambulance; the poor man had to pry her good arm from around his neck or she would have cut off his circulation. Derek noticed the one arm that she kept close to her side, trying not to move it; as she said, it was likely dislocated, if not broken. He’d have to make her go to the hospital and get an x-ray. He saw JJ take the little girl over to Danielle.

“See there’s your mommy.” JJ had stroked the child’s tear dampened cheek to get her attention and pointed to Danielle. 

“Mommy…’ the little girl quietly whispered, barely able to believe it, but wanting to believe so hard. She leaned away from JJ, wanting to go to her mother; Danielle slid down out of the ambulance and took the child with her good arm, and the little girl wrapped both of her tiny little arms around her mother’s neck. Danielle wrapped her good arm around the little girl’s back and squeezed her before pulling back to look into the child’s face.

“Maddy, are you alright?”

“Oh mommy,’ her little voice was hoarse from having cried when she saw her mother go over the edge. “My head hurts from when he pulled me by the hairs. And my arm ‘cause he kept yanking it….” The little girl lowered her head a little bit, almost ashamed of what she had to say next. “I bit daddy,’ she mumbled quietly, ‘I bit him real hard.”

“I’m glad you did sweet pea…..that made him drop you so they could make him go away.” 

“Mommy, can we go home now?” The little girl leaned in and gave her mom a stage whisper.

Before Danielle could answer in the affirmative, Derek spoke up.

“Your mama has to go to the doctor.” 

The little girl flinched away from the sound of the deep voice as Derek came closer, she swung at him. 

“You stay ‘way from my mommy! We’re going home!”

“Maddy! Maddy! Shhh! He helped make daddy stop. He helped make him go away.”

When Danielle first started reprimanding the little girl, Maddy had lifted her head to look into her mother’s eyes, afraid she had done a bad thing. Then she carefully turned her face to Derek….

“You made daddy stop hurting mommy?” Seeing Derek nod his head ‘Yes’ the little girl launched herself out of Danielle’s arm, nearly falling in the process, only to land against Derek’s chest, wrapping her arms  
around his neck; Derek wrapped his arms around the little armful. Once Maddy was securely in Morgan’s arms she pulled back and gave him a kiss on the cheek. 

Placing a hand on each side of Morgan’s face, “Dank you. Now, I can go at home wif mommy.” She turned in his arms a bit, ‘We can right mommy…go at home?” The little girl was so excited. 

“Well, your mom has been staying at my house with my mom while she got better.”

The little girl started tearing up, ‘We can’t go home? But mommy said when the bad man went away we could go home….and I would stay wif her and she’d be my mommy for real….instead of having to tell people  
she was my aunt….I wanna go at home wif my mommy.” Fat tears started rolling down her face then as she put her head back on Morgan’s shoulder. “Mr. Man, I wanna go home wif my mommy.” 

Jumping back down off of the ambulance, ‘We can go home baby.” Danielle wanted her daughter back. 

“We have to get you to a hospital to have you checked out for any injuries..” Hotch’s stern voice interrupted Danielle’s progress. 

She turned and looked at him, as if she was really just seeing him for the first time, ‘But, I want to take my baby with me.” She looked up at him, almost afraid he would tell her know. She had been kept apart from  
her daughter for far too long, she was done with that.

Rossi told the EMT’s that since Danielle was up and walking around that they would take her to the hospital themselves, that way the child could ride with her mother and they, the team could look after the kid  
when they took Danielle back for x-rays. The lead EMT at the scene wasn’t too sure about the idea at first but eventually relented. Apparently, Rossi could be awfully persuasive; Danielle was glad of that.  
Danielle and her daughter were put in an SUV with Morgan driving and Hotch riding shotgun; Rossi, Reid, and the girls followed in the other vehicle. Once buckled in the back seat, Danielle hugged her daughter to her; Maddy clung to her mother, her little arms around her neck, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. By the time they had arrived at the hospital, both mother and daughter were sound asleep. Derek hated to wake them up, but they needed for Danielle to get some x-rays. 

First, Derek woke the little girl; he had to get her out of the SUV before they could get Danielle out. Once he got the little girl mostly awake, he handed her off to Hotch; Hotch didn’t have his dares to go far away from the vehicle until the little girl was sure her mommy was coming, too. 

Then, Derek turned his attention to waking up Danielle and getting her out of the SUV. She argued with him that she could walk, but he wasn’t listening and carried her up to the emergency room entrance of the hospital. Even if her legs were physically able to carry her to the ER on her own, she had been through a lot today, and her adrenaline might be wearing out; as it was she was dozing off quickly in his arms just being carried from the vehicle into the hospital, an act that took less than five minutes.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Once in the hospital it was a struggle to get the little girl, Maddy to let go of her mother long enough for them both to be checked out. For such a small child Maddy sure put up a struggle; when the nurses came to take her back to check her over, she screamed, screeched, and scratched at them raising holy hell to be let go so she could be with her mother. It even got so bad that when she swung her little hand she had somehow scratched a nurse in the face, dangerously close to the eye, leaving the woman to turn away and see to her wound. 

JJ saw that this wasn’t going to be easy for them, so she stepped forward and began speaking to the little girl who stopped instantly. 

“How about I go with you? You can let the nurse make sure you’re ok, no boo-boos. And when you’re finished, and the doctor is finished looking at you mommy, we can take you home and get some dinner.”

The little girl nodded, tired tears streaming down her little chubby cheeks. Quietly then, JJ was led, carrying the tiny hell-cat, to the examination room to get the once over.

Meanwhile in a different examination room, Danielle could hear the commotion that her daughter was causing and kept trying to slide down off of the table, but Morgan wouldn’t let her leave.

“I have to go to her. She needs me.” 

“Not until after you get the ‘all clear’. Look, I’m going to go get Emily to come sit with you while the doctor goes through the examination, it might be more comfortable for you. Please, just let them do their job, it’ll  
go by much faster and you will be able to get back to your daughter a lot quicker that way.”

“You don’t have to go…’ Danielle replied rather quickly, ‘I mean what are they gonna do that’s so bad? Just look at a few bruises…oooh big deal.” 

“Do you want me to stay?” 

She didn’t answer him immediately; she looked…conflicted actually. It was as if she wanted him to stay, because she had grown used to him being around the last few weeks….but still in the grand scheme of things  
she barely knew him. Add to that what had just happened at that apartment building and years of living with a man like Lonnie….being beaten on the daily and locked inside the house like it was a huge cage can do things to your mind….it makes it so you don’t know who you are (or used to be) or who you can trust.

Danielle was saved from having to make a decision for herself when the doctor stepped into the room. He looked at her for a moment and then back at the chart.

“It says here that you have a possible dislocated shoulder with a possibility of some bruised ribs.”

“Yeah, that’s what they tell me.” Danielle nodded, using the hand on the end of her good arm to rake some hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. 

“Ok, I’m going to make the arrangements for having some x-rays run. In the meantime, I want to run a rape kit…”

“No….’ again she answered rather quickly. “Nothing like that happened. I was just…in a fight.” She dropped her gaze to the floor hoping that the doctor would buy that load of crap. She didn’t want to look up. She  
knew that Derek was a profiler; he’d be able to clock a lie a mile away…if she was lying. She had to sell this hard. 

“The fight…it was just me and my…estranged husband. We got into it. Things got way out of hand. He shoved me off the roof of the building. That’s all.” She shrugged her shoulders as if it was no big deal….like  
she was talking about forgetting to buy milk at the grocery store; like it was normal for husbands to push (or throw) their wives off of the roof top of a building.

Derek had noticed that, although she had looked up from the floor, she didn’t dare make eye contact with either himself or the doctor. The doctor must have sensed something was amiss as well.

“Are you sure it was just a fight? You know, you are in the custody of the FBI, I can just ask them to give me their expert opinion, and based on what they come up with…”

“I’m not a criminal. I did nothing wrong. They would have no reason to get a warrant to compel me to cooperate. And, I have already told you….we only fought. It’s no big deal, we fought a lot.” 

Derek noticed the argument she put up. It didn’t start off with the information about the fight. It started off with ‘I am not a criminal…’ as if she felt the need to defend herself against what the doctor was  
suggesting. 

Derek kept studying her; and it was making her damned uncomfortable. Now she wished she had agreed to his suggestion about having that other agent come in to sit with her. 

The doctor tried another approach, ‘Ma’am, this is just standard procedure….”

“Look!” Danielle lowered her gaze and her voice again, ‘Nothing happened. You don’t have to run any unnecessary tests. Just get the x-rays and let me outa here.”

When the doctor looked at Derek all he could do was shrug. The doctor finally acquiesced to Danielle’s demand, setting up some time for the x-rays and putting a rush on the request. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hours later, Danielle came storming through the hall of the hospital, hell bent on collecting her child, then leaving. The argument between Danielle and Morgan could be heard coming down the hall like a  
crashing wave. 

“What good will it achieve? He is dead! It’s not like he can be prosecuted for what he did.”

“I just think we ought to have it done. If the doctor says it’s standard in these situations….”

“Of course; because, I have so much more dignity to lose.” 

The nurses at the nurse’s station were looking at them both in disdain, on the verge of telling them to lower their voices in the hospital or leave. But, it seemed as though Danielle had said all she had to say on the  
subject and turned to make her way into the nearby waiting room. 

JJ was sitting at the kids table with Maddy, helping her color in a coloring book that one of the nurses had been able to find. 

“Thank you for taking care of her Agent Jareau.’ Leaning over and grabbing her little girl with her good arm, ‘Come on baby, we’re leaving.” 

The little girl latched on to her mother carefully, knowing that her mother was injured. 

“Are we going home mommy?” 

“We’re going…somewhere…baby. That’s for sure.” 

“Can we go see Father Jimmy and Sister Celeste?”

As they made their way out of the doors of the hospital Danielle’s answer to her daughter was lost on the wind; Derek tried following them, but the death glare that Danielle turned on him would have turned a lesser man to stone. He stopped, trying to figure out where to go from here. The last sight he saw of Danielle or her tiny daughter, Maddy, they were getting into a taxi that Danielle had been able to catch at just the right moment and pulling out of sight.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More or less a filler chapter. Danielle has ditched the hospital, and Derek, at least momentarily. Derek, with the help of Rossi, finds her hiding out in a church operated by none other than Rossi's friend Father Jimmy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back at it again. Just a quickie sort of chapter this time around though.....as usual any (**) you see will usually be denoting an area that was in italics when I wrote it originally (usually an area where the characters were thinking to themselves). Hopefully this wasn't sooo bad. If it was I can only hope to do better next time. Thanks for hanging in there and waiting on me.

Derek watched as Danielle carried Maddy out of the hospital. He didn’t know what to do; now she was going to be on her own in the city and, as far as he knew, she had no money or anyway of taking care of herself and the kid. Never mind the fact that he had formed quite an attachment to Danielle and had no idea how he was supposed to deal with not having her around. As he turned around to walk back into the waiting room he punched the wall. 

“Morgan! Stop beating the shit out of the walls.” Rossi commanded.

“Stay out of this Rossi.” Derek had yet to look at the older man.

“You did not just tell me to stay out of it did you? You can’t be serious. In case you forgot, she came to my house, asking for my help. That doesn’t stop just because that asshole is dead.” 

Derek finally looked up at his colleague and he saw a particular look in Rossi’s eye that meant the old man knew something that he didn’t.

“What do you know?”

“More than I should tell you…”

“Rossi…”

“Didn’t you hear the kid?”

“Yeah, she asked Danielle if they could go see Father Jimm…Wait…Father Jimmy?”

Rossi gave him an all knowing smirk, ‘I just happen to know of his parish.” 

“Well come on man! I have to bring her back.” 

“Don’t you think that you need to give her time to calm down?” 

“You can’t be serious. What if she takes off for good?”

“Isn’t that her choice?” 

“Fine! You don’t want to tell me where she is; I will find it out for myself. I’m going to get her back with or without your help.”

Derek took off out the door like a house on fire, not waiting for Dave to answer him. Rossi had to damn near jog to keep up. 

“You will need me with you. If she is going to see Father Jimmy and this is a regular set up….he won’t just turn her over.”

“Fine. Get in. Buckle up.” 

As soon as Rossi had done just that, Morgan barked tires pulling out of the parking lot headed in the direction of the church that Rossi had indicated.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Meanwhile at St. Mary’s, a good thirty minutes outside of Quantico proper, Sister Celeste heard a knocking on the church door. Opening it she sees her dearest friend standing there, her child on her hip.  
Not waiting for the open invitation to come in, Danielle went ahead on into the sanctuary of the church.

“Is Father Jimmy alright?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” 

“Lonnie found her….I-I worried.” 

“He has been visiting the Hospice, he’s away today.”

That seemed to relieve Danielle like nothing ever had, she leaned her back against the door, cradling little Maddy’s head to her shoulder; she could finally breathe. She hadn’t been able to think about anything but the safety of her little girl and that of Father Jimmy since she found out that Lonnie had found the child. She was so happy and relieved that tears started pouring from her eyes. 

“Come. It seems that you could do with some rest. The Father will be back soon. I can let you rest in his office until he gets here.” 

Sister Celeste took Danielle’s hand and led her, while she carried the child with her good arm, through the cool nave of the church, through to the South Transept; just tucked away in one corner was a small office. It had a few large windows, an old desk and chair, there was a red rug that rested on the otherwise bare wooden floor, and there was an old sofa that Father Jimmy had likely brought from his house to use in there when he was trying to relax while he thought of his next sermon. It was older than dirt but she had heard Father Jimmy say a few times before it was quite comfortable as far as couches go…there was also two leather arm chairs with a high backs that sat in front of the desk. 

“Look, settle here; you can rest on one end, and Maddy can have the other….and there’s a blanket. Though, with the sun coming in these southern windows, it’s rather warm in here as it is.”

Danielle was slowly starting to feel the last bit of energy leaving her body. She had run out of adrenaline long ago; but she had gotten a small second wind with her argument with Der…Agent Morgan. But, now, she   
was almost done entirely. Her eyes felt so heavy. And having carried her child so long, Maddy was starting to feel like a ton of bricks. Danielle weakly nodded at Sister Celeste as the young woman backed out of the office, quietly shutting the door behind her. Danielle got her daughter, little Maddy, settled on one end of the couch, covering her with one end of the blanket that had been on the back of the sofa. Then she slid her own shoes off and grabbed one of the decorative pillows to support her head, and lay down, taking a bit of blanket for herself. It was only a matter of moments before she had fallen asleep, watching her daughter sleep quietly.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It felt as though she had slept for days when she heard the commotion out in the main body of the church; in reality it had only been a matter of perhaps 20 minutes, if the time on Father Jimmy’s desk clock was any indication. 

She could hear voices. One she knew was Sister Celeste; she was telling someone else that she didn’t care who they were, she would not let them pass until Father Jimmy got back and talked with them. Then she heard two men’s voices; Rossi and Morgan. 

Danielle jumped up and grabbed her shoes, slipping them on; she leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. Walking across the room she positioned herself near one of the windows in the corner; if Rossi and Morgan made it past Celeste, she was going out of that window…it was a drop of only a couple feet, nothing too daring. She didn’t want to run…she didn’t want to leave Maddy at the church again. If she was honest with herself, she was going to actually miss Derek and his mom….especially his mom. She was so nice. It had been so long since she had a mom, just for a second she had been able to pretend.   
She had to suck it up. For far too long her life had not been her own to control. As much as she might care about Derek or the others, she had to do this. She was going to finally have a life where she was in control of something; she could send for Maddy when she was away from here. 

Just as she was about to go out of the window, she heard it….Father Jimmy. 

“Dave, how have you been?” The sound muffled by the closed door.

**Crap! He’s friends with the old man.**

She could hear continued conversation just on the other side of the door. Agent Rossi was explaining to Father Jimmy what was going on. Father Jimmy seemed to make a phone call quickly to check on his friend that had been in charge of Maddy’s care while Danielle was trying to get away from her husband. After making that phone call and arranging to have that friend taken to the hospital, Jimmy hung up and dealt with Rossi and Agent Morgan. 

With any luck he would tell them that he had no idea where she was, that she wouldn’t have come back here as far as he knew. 

**Who am I kidding? He’s a priest…and he’s one of the decent ones…he could never lie.**

Danielle made up her mind not to run. By the looks of Morgan he could catch her quickly enough unless she had a substantial head start; and even if he couldn’t, it seemed like the old man might have a long reach. It was best to conserve energy; she didn’t have a lot of it left to begin with. Thinking quicker than she thought she could, she hustled back over to the sofa, flopping down onto it and bringing the cover up over herself, and pretending to be asleep just as the three men entered the office. 

“Stop faking Danielle. I know you were thinking of going out the window.” Father Jimmy’s voice was to be heard just inches from her ear. “Your friends are here to take you and Maddy home.”

Glaring up at Father Jimmy from her reclined position, ‘I don’t have a home to go to.”

“You’re coming back to my place….”

“NO! I’m not. I will not be….”

“I won’t. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have been such an ass at the hospital.”

“All men apologize when they want something. It means little.”

“At least come back for the next couple of days, until you can come up with a more solid idea than sleeping on a couch with you kid. I can always send my mom down here to come and get you.”

Danielle by this time had sat up; flexing her neck a bit. When she heard Morgan use his mom as leverage she glared at him. 

“That is dirty pool. But I’ll do it…for your mother; I don’t want her to be inconvenienced because of me.” 

Rossi had watched the whole exchange, along with Father Jimmy, with a slight touch of amusement on his face. Now with a truce in sight, at least for the moment, he was antsy to get on the road and get settled for   
the day. 

“Grab you kid and your shoes and let’s get this circus back on the train; we’re burning daylight, and I’m having everybody over at my place for dinner tonight.” 

“Oh alright. Maddy, it’s time to get up baby. The old people are starting to get hungry and grouchy, like the lions at the zoo.” 

“We can go to the zoo mama? Where’s da lions?” Maddy questioned groggily as she sat up, mostly unaware of where she was, her hair all askew from sleeping on the couch. 

“Come on baby, we have to go. The agent man said we can stay at his house with him. His mommy is there, too; so I need you to behave for me alright.” 

The little girl nodded her head, her baby soft hair falling over one side of her face as she tried putting her own shoes back on. Danielle leaned over and helped the girl make sure she had the shoes on the right feet and that they were tied carefully before trying to finger comb some of the girl’s hair back into place. 

“Mommy where are we going? I mean for now?”

“Well tonight we are staying at the agent man’s house….”

“Ok, but I mean…”

“Well, you and your mother are coming to my house for dinner tonight with the rest of my friends and Agent Man over there, well he’s gonna bring his mother.” Rossi answered the tiny girl’s question without hesitation. 

“Oh, ok.” Maddy had gone about sitting quietly on the couch as Danielle tried pulling on her shoes…that is until the child gasped and grabbed her mother by the arm.

“What is it baby?”

“Mommy I don’t gots no clothes a sleep in or to go at the dinner.” The little girl sounded really upset that the only clothes she seemed to have were the clothes on her back and that they were rumpled and not suitable anymore.

“Don’t be so silly,’ Sister Celeste came into the room carrying a little travel bag. It was a child’s bag, and it had some Care-Bears on it. “Here you go baby. I made sure to put some things away for you, just in case.”

Maddy jumped into Celeste’s arms and thanked her, hugging the nun’s neck as tightly as she could manage. 

“There may even be a little dress in there, I don’t know. You’ll have to look when you get to your friend’s house later.” 

Soon enough Danielle had finally managed to get herself and her child pulled together enough that they could make their way out of the church. At the door, she hugged father Jimmy and thanked him, and then she hugged Sister Celeste tightly as well. She seemed almost sad to be leaving them.

Rossi told Derek that they should be over at his house around 6:30; that would give Danielle time to get herself and Maddy cleaned up and changed, as well as for Derek and his mother to have time to get ready.   
As Danielle got Maddy ready to go and hugged Father Jimmy as well as Sister Celeste goodbye, Morgan would take his eyes off of her. Danielle shot a glance quickly his way from the corner of her eye merely to see what he was doing. She would have to ask him later why he was staring. 

With that they made their way out to Morgan’s truck for the ride back to Quantico.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Around the time that I had finished chapter 8 (when I originally wrote this story, some months back), I was heading into a point in time that i guess you could say I was depressed....had a lot on my mind....I stopped writing almost entirely for a while. This chapter (9) was almost entirely written just before that happened, but I never got it posted. I finished it just recently and posted it at the other site I frequent the other day and now, it's up here too. It's just a filler chapter, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean much, but it was just a little something to try to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully I will be able to make it around to updating all of my stories soon.


End file.
